President Bush travels to Asia this week to participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. At the top of his agenda, writes Balbina Hwang, is strengthening ties with America's allies in the region.

Issues on the table include security cooperation, military basing in Japan, trade, and strains in the U.S.-Korea alliance. More broadly, APEC members will want to discuss the Doha round meeting in Hong Kong next month, the war on terrorism, and avian flu.

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Read Bush's APEC Trip: Strengthening Ties in Asia
by Balbina Y. Hwang, Ph.D.

Following APEC, Bush will journey to Beijing to meet with Chinese leaders. The U.S. and China have increasingly diverging agendas, writes John Tkacik, on democracy and freedom, military power in Asia, nonproliferation, Taiwan, North Korea, and the global energy market.

"There will be no breakthroughs and very little agreement on key issues," concludes Tkacik. "On balance, China's behavior continues to trend in a negative direction."

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Read Nothing in Common: A Policy Review for President Bush's China Visit by John J. Tkacik, Jr.

In a long overdue move, Amtrak’s board of directors fired David Gunn, Amtrak’s president, on November 9. The board finally lost patience with Gunn and his lack of progress in improving service and reducing losses. Hastening Gunn’s demise was a recent report by the Government Accountability Office which concluded correctly that “Amtrak lacks a meaningful strategic plan that provides a clear mission and measurable corporate-wide goals, strategies, and outcomes to guide the organization.”

Criticizing big oil companies and their big profits is very popular in Congress right now. Even some normally free-market Republicans have tried to outdo the Democrats in anti-industry rhetoric, and bills have been introduced proposing ways to punish the major oil companies. But experience has shown that hurting big oil is not the way to help consumers, and ideas like the windfall profits tax that have failed before should not be given a second chance.