Note: Today is the seventh in a series of posts that detail Eurasia Group's Top Risks for 2013

East Asia's geopolitical stability will continue to deteriorate this year. Countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan will take tougher stances on territorial disputes with China and seek to involve Washington more closely in these issues. But China's new government will find it difficult to compromise and may even take more forceful positions given its need to consolidate internal support and channel growing nationalism. Meanwhile, the US will continue to enhance engagement with Asian partners -- particularly on the economic side -- which will raise skepticism in Beijing.

The most worrying concern during the early part of 2013 will be the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, claimed by both China and Japan. Tensions surrounding the islands spiked in late 2012 following the Japanese central government's decision to purchase several of them from their private owners. The growing presence of Chinese ships and aircraft in surrounding waters is stoking nationalist sentiments in Japan and increasing the risk of a clash that could quickly escalate and ensnare the world's three biggest economies in an ugly dispute.

In 2013, regional governments will lean toward political considerations more than economic ones. In Japan, a new government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become more assertive on foreign policy issues. The LDP was able to capitalize on nationalist sentiments in its campaign, and Abe will carry through with some of his promises in 2013 by establishing a more assertive national security and foreign policy posture. Abe will also bolster the U.S.-Japan security alliance and likely commit Japan to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. China will regard such moves as confrontational.

Meanwhile, Beijing's appetite for compromise will be limited. China's political transition will make it more difficult for Beijing to be flexible on foreign policy issues. The country's new leaders will need to consolidate internal support. Moreover, growing middle-class expectations and concern over the state's control of information are expected to encourage a more nationalistic foreign policy. If Beijing faces a foreign policy test, the incoming administration might feel the need to demonstrate its foreign policy mettle and avoid being seen as capitulating to outside interests.

Policies toward Asia from the U.S. will not change much: The rebalancing of its attention toward the region will continue, with more substance on the economic than on the strategic side. In particular Washington's trade negotiators will focus on negotiations for the TPP talks.

The South China Sea will be another hotspot. There has been relatively little tension there in recent months, but that calm is unlikely to continue. Vietnam and the Philippines, in particular, will maintain their aggressive postures toward China. Neither country has an interest in provoking a military conflict, but domestic politics make it difficult to back down without a perceived (even if minor) but unlikely concession from Beijing.

Later this week, we'll profile Risk #8: Iran

Eurasia Group's weekly selection of essential reading for the political risk junkie-presented in no particular order. As always, feel free to give us your feedback or selections @EurasiaGroup or @IanBremmer.

Must-Reads

Banyan Asia blog, The Economist

On Wednesday, Park Geun-hye was named president of South Korea by a small margin, making her the first woman to hold the post in the nation's history. How will her presidency differ from Lee Myung-bak's? What are the implications for North-South relations? 

Sanjaya Baru, The Hindu

A much more momentous Asian election took place this past weekend, as Shinzo Abe and the LDP returned to power. Many are focusing on the possible conflicts that the election could provoke between China and Japan, but this piece asks: Are Japan and India the "natural partners in Asia?" In light of the conflict over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, it seems Japan is pursuing an ABC policy (Anybody But China). Why not India?

Sami Yousafzai, The Daily Beast

The eradication of polio has been tantalizingly within reach, as its presence has dwindled to just a handful of countries. But wiping the disease out of Pakistan comes with substantial risks. This piece focuses on the dangers to the anti-polio mission in the wake of Bin Laden's death and the role that vaccinations played in gathering intelligence for the operation. 

J.J. Gould, The Atlantic

Another atrocity that hasn't disappeared: human trafficking and forced labor. These are new terms for what Gould still dubs 'slavery.' Even by conservative estimates, there are more people enslaved today than at any point in history. This is an epidemic that needs global attention. 

Brian Whitmore, Power Vertical Blog

If there were a foreign-policy edition of People magazine, Putin would fill the pages. Why all the hype for his most recent press conference? Consider analysis of his performance as our guilty pleasure political risk story. 

Longer Reads

Joshua Foer, The New Yorker

This piece is not political per se, but the treatment of language as an art -- communicable and easily repurposed the world over -- has global as well as philosophical implications. Foer follows a man who spent 34 years inventing a language designed to more precisely mirror reality. The story of who ended up co-opting it -- for political purposes no less -- makes for a fascinating read.

By Scott Rosenstein

Contamination reports out of Japan have prompted more than just Jeremy Piven to second-guess their consumption of sushi and other Japanese delicacies. With many countries including the United States, Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore banning selected food imports from Japan, fears of a global food supply riddled with radioactivity have been on the rise. The World Health Organization has characterized the situation as "serious." As a result, Japanese food is suffering from a burgeoning branding crisis.

Continued contamination revelations, including recent reports of plutonium in the soil around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and trace amounts of radioactive cesium and iodine reaching the United States, will likely exacerbate the situation. For Japan, the resulting economic dislocation will be a small (agriculture only constitutes 1.1 percent of the country's GDP) but notable addition to the long list of challenges it faces.

But should we all stop eating food associated with Japan? When it comes to food safety, emotion sometimes trumps reality. The United States, for example, imports less than two percent of its seafood from Japan. The Food and Drug Administration is now monitoring those imports closely, and many restaurants have already halted whatever remaining food orders they have with Japan. France, Germany, India, China, and South Korea have announced similar measures. These are prudent steps to take. But whether they reassure consumers remains to be seen. Even if none of the food on diners' plates is from Japan, ongoing fears could dent the popularity of Japanese-style cuisine worldwide.

Either way, the risk of elevated trade tensions remains low. As long as the import bans are temporary and not perceived as blanket restrictions intended to favor domestic producers, it is unlikely that conflict will arise. China, for example, consumes a significant proportion of Japan's food exports -- much of which is sold at a premium to high-end consumers with promises of quality and safety. Beijing will need to appear proactive for the sake of public opinion at home, but it won't be easy to replace Japanese imports domestically, making the government less likely to do anything drastic. China probably also wants to maintain good trade relations with its neighbor in order to increase exports of Chinese-made food into Japan, particularly if food shortages there worsen or if consumer confidence in Japanese food takes a serious hit. (Considering China's poor record on food safety, however, confidence in Japan would need to plunge considerably for the latter scenario to play out.)

To be sure, health concerns about the issue are not unfounded. The majority of illness stemming from the Chernobyl accident in 1986 resulted from contaminated dairy consumption. Simply instructing children not to drink milk from affected areas in Chernobyl would have drastically reduced the suffering there. Continued monitoring of the situation in Japan therefore remains critical. But we are still very far from Chernobyl levels of contamination. And as the headline risk about food safety in Japan continues to rise, so too does the possibility that much more immediate emergencies in Japan will receive proportionately less international attention.  

Scott Rosenstein is an analyst in Eurasia Group's Global Health practice.

By Ross Schaap

The devastation in Japan, the enormous human suffering, and the rising anxiety over ongoing problems in the country's nuclear facilities are well-documented. But assuming the nuclear crisis remains localized with no direct impact on economic activity in Tokyo, here are a few reasons for (cautious) confidence in Japan's resilience.

In 1995, when an earthquake struck the important industrial city of Kobe, many observers forecast that the impact of the disaster on Japanese production would last for many years. Yet, economic activity in the affected area reached 98 percent of pre-quake levels within 18 months, and the cleanup was largely complete within two years. This is a reminder that the seismic magnitude of a quake is a less reliable indicator of long-term economic damage than the strength and resilience of the country in which it occurs.

Long-term damage to Japan's economy is limited by the reality that the country's industrial core lies outside the region most badly damaged by the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear emergency.

Japan's economy has excess manufacturing capacity on most fronts and, in time, will adjust.

As Robert Madsen and Richard J. Samuels have written, the disaster has temporarily secured Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government. For the moment, no one within his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is willing to risk a party split or is strong enough to launch a leadership challenge. Further, the Japanese public will have no tolerance for attempts to oust the DPJ government or for a national election in a time of such crisis.

As a result, Kan should now finally be able to pass budget-related legislation that will authorize the debt issuance needed to execute the government's budget.

Reconstruction will spur industrial activity and long-term investment in housing, commercial and industrial infrastructure. That's a source of long-term economic stimulus.

The magnitude of the government response will be driven by need, not by fear that markets will constrain it. Gross debt has surpassed the 200 percent of GDP threshold, but net government debt is at about 110 percent of GDP. That's high, but it's not above the level managed by other countries in the past. Government notes are mostly held domestically, and Japan has a healthy external balance, with a net international investment position of $2.8 trillion.

Japan, a country already treated in much of the international media as a fading economic power, now faces a crisis of enormous proportions. But it is a mistake to underestimate the country's ability to meet the challenges it now faces.

Ross Schaap is director of comparative analytics at Eurasia Group and an analyst of Japanese politics.

This week's U.S.-South Korean trade agreement fills Japan's political leaders with envy. The latest reports of North Korean belligerence fill them with dread. Suspicions that a record-breaking Chinese high-speed train was built with Japanese technology fill them with anger.

It's not easy finding good news in Japan. Following two decades of economic inertia, dynamic growth feels like ancient history. At nearly 200 percent of GDP, Japan's gross government debt has reached dangerous levels. The population is aging, and a third of Japanese young adults don't have jobs. China's shadow is lengthening across East Asia. Americans once worried that Japan was buying the U.S. economy. Today they fear the U.S. will repeat Japan's mistakes.

Yet, Japan's beleaguered leaders have three important advantages.

First, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led government and the country's business elite are finally realizing that they have to work together. The DPJ won control of government in 2009 after a half century in the wilderness during the nearly uninterrupted rule of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The DPJ's longstanding ties with trade unions and its leaders' anti-business rhetoric have badly damaged the party's credibility with Japan's industrial elite.

But the LDP won't be staging a comeback in the near future. To accomplish much of anything, the DPJ government needs the business elite to succeed. The business community, in turn, needs much better relations with the government. The two sides seem now to recognize that they have no choice but to build stronger, more durable ties. That's a foundation for better days ahead.

Second, China's rise -- and a growing appetite in Beijing for confrontation with Tokyo -- has accomplished something that U.S. and Japanese diplomats haven't. It has put the U.S.-Japanese relationship back on track. Once Washington and Tokyo stop bickering over placement of U.S. military bases, they can make progress on more serious security issues.

None of these issues could be more important than a renewed push for progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral free trade pact that might one day integrate many of the Pacific Rim's largest economies. Washington is already negotiating to join. Japan's government has finally begun to show interest. In part that's because, with the DPJ in power, Japanese farmers won't have a veto over the pact as they did with the LDP in charge. It's also because China's expansion has Japan (and others in the region) looking to balance Beijing's growing weight by strengthening its ties with the United States.

Most importantly, Japan's leaders can count their blessings that angry large-scale demonstrations aren't common in Japan. Despite 20 years of economic malaise, Japanese leaders don't face the kind of public outrage we've seen this year in Europe. There's no Japanese tea party. Japanese students aren't as in to property damage as their South Korean counterparts. And unlike China, rising unemployment poses no threat to the survival of Japan's government.

And if its luck really begins to turn, perhaps Japan can get its economy back on track ... just in time to host the World Cup in 2034.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?

There are several fascinating elections due this year. Next month, we can look forward to Britain's most unpredictable outcome in 100 years. In Poland, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has become a presidential candidate in hopes of succeeding his twin brother Lech, killed in a plane crash earlier this month. Japan's ruling DPJ faces a referendum on its first turbulent months in power with upper house elections this summer. In November, recession-weary Americans will go to the polls to elect a new congress.

With all that going on, you probably haven't thought much about next month's local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's largest state. Eager to institutionalize a post-bailout era of greater fiscal discipline, the German government is preparing to push for a major revision of eurozone rules in the form of a new European Union treaty. The aim is to build momentum behind a drive for fiscal consolidation and greater powers to enforce rules across the currency union.

But it's hard to imagine that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government will get what it wants. Irreconcilable differences remain among key European states, and Germany doesn't have the political power it held a generation ago in the run-up to introduction of the euro. Today's union is much larger, and the perceived benefits of convergence are worth less. The contentious debate over a new treaty will unfold just as the battle is heating up to replace Jean-Claude Trichet as president of Europe's Central Bank.

The immediate concern is that Standard & Poor's lowered Greece's debt rating to junk on Tuesday and Portugal by two steps. The big longer-term worry for Europe is that politicians locked into tough deflationary programs (in Greece and beyond) will take the once-taboo step of pushing for debt restructuring. We're not talking about the break-up of the eurozone, no matter how much apocalyptic rhetoric we hear in days to come or how many pundits write articles this fall with titles like "Who killed Europe?" But the less dramatic risks for European fiscal policy are plenty serious.

That's where Germany's local elections come in. The balloting in North Rhine-Westphalia, home to more than 20 percent of Germany's citizens, will provide a real test of Angela Merkel's center-right government. A bad result would jeopardize Germany's shot at tax reform. More to the point, it would weaken the entire eurozone by undermining support for fiscal discipline at the heart of Europe.

A return of the German left, even a modest one, will generate much more expansionary policy than we saw during the grand coalition period between 2005 and 2009. That will create stronger institutional support for German labor demands, driving a rebalancing within the eurozone as German labor costs begin to rise. That will undermine European competitiveness at a delicate moment in the union's recovery from recession. Over the longer term, it's hard to imagine Europe's fiscal woes improving in that environment. That's why I believe strongly in the eurozone, but not in a strong eurozone.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and author of The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? (Portfolio, May 2010)

Dubai may be a no show, but Japan's here and not doing much. General thoughts from my conversations here:

1) The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) doesn't look like it's going to win a clear majority in upper house elections this summer. A precipitous change of events from a few months ago ... but indecisiveness and scandal has crippled Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama, who was on the Davos programme, but cancelled last minute. Hmm. 

2) DJP kingmaker Ozawa is locked in a battle to the death with independent prosecutors.  consensus Japanese view in Davos: a) Circumstantial evidence shows Ozawa's guilty as sin; b) Prosecutors are operating above the law, with no countervailing force to stop them, and the Japanese media is out of control; c) Careers are at stake for both sides, with no backing down. Surprisingly enough, there's a growing belief that Ozawa is forced out. But the timeline (weeks, months, or more) is completely unclear. More hmm.

3) U.S.-Japan foreign policy is heading for trouble given what looks like a scuttled military base deal ... but nobody's worried very much in the context of broader Japanese policy woes. Plus, Japan doesn't really have foreign policy (and China, as we're seeing, does). Dangerous trumps ineffectual; advantage Japan. No hmm at all.

Ian Bremmer will be blogging from Davos this week sending reports and commentary from inside the World Economic Forum.  

By Jun Okumura and Ross Schaap

The conventional wisdom in U.S.-Japanese relations is that things were largely fine until the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) upset the apple cart by winning control of Japan's government. Security policy observers appear to accept the idea that the DPJ has strained the close relationship that Japan's former ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had developed with the United States over the past several decades. A show of bilateral solidarity during President Obama's one-night stand in Tokyo last week has done little to change these opinions. The conventional wisdom has it wrong.

The source of this mistaken belief centers on the DPJ's electoral promise to review the 2006 U.S.-Japanese agreement that would move the bulk of a US Marine base out of the center of Ginowan, a city of nearly 100,000 in Okinawa, to Guam. The remainder -- a large contingency of helicopters-would relocate to a more remote location near Nago, also within Okinawa. The DPJ's indecision on whether to move ahead with construction of a new airfield above a coral reef near Nago seems to have thrown a wrench in the works, but the real difference between the DPJ and the LDP is simply in the visibility of its reluctance to give Washington what it wants.

The disconnect here is in overestimation of cooperation from the LDP. The long history of this redeployment headache gets left out of most accounts of the current controversy. The initial U.S. force redeployment deal was agreed in 1996, and the new airfield and redeployment were supposed to be completed by 2004. Instead, after seven years without progress, both sides went back to the bargaining table, a process that eventually yielded the 2006 agreement. Yet, more than three years of LDP rule later, authorization of construction at the airfield still falls to the new DPJ government. In other words, the LDP agreed to give the United States what it wanted ... and then did virtually nothing to make it happen.

So what has changed? The DPJ, not to mention its coalition partner the Social Democratic Party of Japan, is much more openly antagonistic to the 2006 agreement. The visibility of that reluctance has moved the US to respond publicly on an issue that slid by without action on a much lower profile during the Bush years. Unusually blunt public statements from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, insisting on quick implementation of the 2006 agreement, generated headlines -- and much chatter on bilateral strains. Though the Obama administration appears to have taken a step back, agreeing to set up a joint working group on the Ginowan issue, it continues to reject the one alternative that the Japanese Foreign Minister has been pursuing on his own -- moving the Marine helicopters to Kadena Air Base, an idea which the locals also reject.

That the United States started from a position of intransigence on renegotiation isn't remarkable. But this doesn't mean that's where the issue will end. The U.S. side has waited 13 years; it has no practical reasons to reject a technically and politically viable alternative even if it means a few more years of delay. In fact, further delay is the next likely course of action/inaction. The two sides have been stuck on the status quo conundrum for 13 years for reasons we can only guess at, but likely include operational requirements that leave little or no room for a non-Okinawa solution, while no other viable Okinawa alternative is in sight.

That said, the DPJ's political links to the anti-U.S. military presence in Okinawa, the SDP presence in the coalition, and the unfortunate political calendar, including a mayoral election in January in Nago and an Upper House election in the summer of 2010, are making it exceedingly difficult for the DPJ leadership to make up its mind to accept the lesser evil and give the go-ahead to construction work at Nago.

All this dictates the continuation of the status quo. But then, such a turn of events -- or the lack of one -- should not come as a surprise. In reality, history shows that for U.S.-Japanese relations, there's much less difference between the DPJ and LDP than meets the eye -- in principle or in practice.

Jun Okumura is a senior adviser to Eurasia Group and Ross Schaap is Director of Comparative Analytics.

ISSEI KATO/AFP/Getty Images

By Eurasia Group analyst Courtney Rickert

Amid headlines that the global economic crisis has stabilized, an important question arises: Which countries' economies will recover most quickly, and which recoveries will be the most sustainable? The key to finding an answer lies in understanding how countries were exposed to the global downturn and assessing their policy responses. Countries that choose to adjust to the changed global economic environment will come out on top in the long term.

While all internationally integrated economies have suffered growth declines, some economies entered the recession in a better position than others. Part of this divergence is a result of the quality of government policies, such as balanced fiscal positions and low inflation. Other key factors in determining a country's exposure to the crisis are trade imbalances and overinvestment in select sectors, such as real estate, in the period leading up to the global financial crisis.

Countries that had persistent trade deficits -- such as the US-financed them by borrowing heavily from abroad. Frequently, international borrowing fed domestic consumption far more than investment. This excess consumption contributed to bubbles during the boom years -- notably in financial assets and real estate-that have since popped. These economies have been slower to stabilize, but the housing and retail markets are naturally adjusting as home prices fall, banks become more prudent, and consumers buy less. In these cases, there is little need for long-term adjustments to macroeconomic policies.

On the other hand, government policy choices will play an important role in countries that sustained trade surpluses, such as China, Germany, and Japan, because these surpluses were a result of government policies that promoted exports. Their economies have been hard hit by declining global demand-particularly in the US. Although government stimulus spending has propped up their economies in the short term, China, Germany, and Japan will face a fundamentally different global market in the long term -- one that is unlikely to revert to the pre-crisis status quo levels of global demand. Governments in these countries will have to choose whether to reorient their economies away from export dependence or try to muddle through and hope for a return of foreign demand.

Effective policy responses in all countries have required crisis stabilization, the cleanup of sectors that experienced overinvestment, and adjustment to the rapidly shifting global flow of funds and goods. Even the best-run governments will face difficulty managing these activities smoothly, but many are demonstrating the ability and willingness to do so. Below are snapshots of policy responses in the four largest economies: the United States., Japan, China, and Germany.

United States
The United States had a large trade deficit during the expansionary period, allowing it to adjust relatively easily to declining global demand. However, as a result of international capital inflows, it also had significant overinvestment in financial assets and real estate. The Obama administration responded relatively aggressively to the crisis by taking action to clean up the financial sector and implementing a $787 billion fiscal stimulus plan, but spending has been slow to materialize. The US economy is forecast to contract by 2.6% in 2009 and show only minimal growth in 2010, as individuals and firms paying down their debts remain a drag on economic growth. But compared to the major trade surplus countries, the United States' relatively fluid economy will likely to adjust to the new global environment more smoothly and rapidly.

Japan
Japan's exposure to the current crisis has been exacerbated by its efforts to sustain trade surpluses, but its economy had already been adjusting before the crisis began, with production increasingly moving overseas. Moreover, when the global decline in demand hit, Japanese firms decreased production and rapidly leveled off at much lower output. In addition, the 30 August elections are expected to displace the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), bringing to power a government that is more interested in protecting the interests of consumers rather than producers. This situation is reducing Japan's dependence on exports, providing a more stable base for growth.

China
The global slowdown has hurt demand for Chinese goods and threatened the vitality of China's export-oriented economic growth. While exports are unlikely to return to their previous levels in the near to medium term, Beijing's massive stimulus spending, relaxed monetary policy, and export promotion will partially counter the collapse in demand. If China is to secure long-term growth, however, efforts to rebalance the economy toward greater domestic consumption -- by putting more income in workers' pockets-must be considered.

Germany
The export orientation of the German economy and tight integration with the wider European economy limits the government's ability to stimulate domestic demand. Moreover, liabilities in the banking sector are worrying. While the government has fiscal room to maneuver, focus on the upcoming election and fears about the cost of potential interventions in both the real and financial sector have constrained Berlin. Most importantly, the government is averse to policies that would lead to a structural change in the country's export orientation. While this could begin to erode after the 27 September elections, any shift in German policy will be limited by concerns about government debt levels.

YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images

By Ian Bremmer

Moisés Naím wisely warns us in his latest FP column that transnational problems are pressing just at a moment when multinational consensus on solutions has become nearly impossible to achieve. If 20 countries produce 85 percent of global GDP, 20 countries generate three-quarters of global greenhouse gasses, just 21 are directly concerned with nuclear non-proliferation, and 19 account for almost two-thirds of AIDS deaths, limiting negotiations over collective action to the smaller number of states needed for workable solutions makes good sense. But in today's geopolitical environment, 20 is still a very big number.

The ongoing economic meltdown has accelerated the inevitable transition from a G7 to a G20 world. Gone are the days when the United States, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada could credibly claim global political and economic leadership. Today, no institution that excludes China, India, Russia, Brazil, and a few other emerging heavyweights can fully address the biggest international challenges.

But it's not simply that it's tougher to forge compromises with 20 negotiators at the table than with seven. It's that some of the new players have fundamental disagreements with the established powers on some very big questions -- like what role government should play in an economy. Agreements on managing transnational health crises, nuclear proliferation, regional security, or greenhouse gasses and global warming will involve complex policy solutions with direct impact on domestic economies.

Second, the new governments at the table are preoccupied with problems much closer to home-issues that can be addressed on a (relatively) more modest and manageable scale. China's political leadership, an increasingly indispensable player on several transnational problems, is far more concerned with domestic than with international challenges. Much of its foreign policy is intended to fuel the continuation of explosive domestic economic growth-and the millions of jobs it creates. Its rhetoric may be global, but its focus is more often regional. The governments of India, Russia, and Brazil are likewise intent on managing the impact of the global recession on their domestic economies and advancing their political interests within their immediate neighborhoods. That's why much of the forward movement on transnational issues will come from regional groupings like the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Some respected observers of international politics have called for a G2, a meeting of US and Chinese minds for the ultimate in minilateralist institutions. There are many reasons why this won't happen anytime soon-if ever. The Chinese leadership may enjoy such talk, but its most seasoned policymakers know well that China cannot yet afford to shoulder such burdens. Nor are Washington and Beijing likely to agree on how to solve many of these problems. And to reduce international consensus to two countries is to ignore the growing importance of many others.

In other words, Moisés is correct that 20 is a much more manageable magic number than 200. But these 20 are unlikely to accomplish big things for the foreseeable future.