BEIJING, Nov. 11 -- The past 16 years of Washington's conduct abroad seems to have done more harm for the world than good, and now is the right time for Donald Trump, America' s president-elect, to start contemplating a reset of his country's relations with the rest of the globe.
Putting behind him a highly-charged and extremely negative campaign, Trump came to grab the U.S. presidency at a time when the world is at a critical fork in the road.
The global economy is teetering on the precipice of a potential global economic recession. Talks against free trade and globalization are rampant at uNPRecedented levels. The Middle East is as chaotic as ever.
The Asia-Pacific's economic exuberance and geopolitical stability is being tested. All these writings on the wall have some sort of connection with Washington and its decades of self-serving foreign policy.
The presidency of George W. Bush was characterized by the doctrine of unilateralism and preemptive strikes.
The deliberate invasion of Iraq with no probable cause and a war that killed more than half a million Iraqis remain a classic example of how abusive a superpower can be.
Barack Obama wants to shift Washington's diplomatic and military resources from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific. Yet his ill-advised and overhasty retreat from Iraq left some breathing room for terrorism. The rise of the Islamic State is the result of poor policy.
In Syria, the Obama administration stubbornly supports a regime change by keeping the oppositions breathing in a pro-longed civil war that has displaced many millions of Syrians who are flocking into Europe and other parts of the world.
Obama's pivot-to-Asia has also churned up the waters in the Asia Pacific. Washington's interventionist engagement into many of the region' s maritime spats has one simple purpose: to keep regional countries divided and distracted and to keep its supremacy in the region unchallenged.
Yet the execution of this very doctrine has deepened mutual suspicion between Beijing and Washington and could potentially destabilize the whole region.
While campaigning for presidency, Trump has proposed numerous jaw-dropping political and economic ideas to tackle world affairs. Although the "America-first" approach should be altered, his isolationist and anti-free trade approach is certainly not a blessing for the international community at this critical moment.
As president, he should come around to help boost slack global trade growth, not counter it. Being a successful business man, he is no way a stranger to the kind of benefits a robust trade transaction can bring to his country and the wider world.
However, he should treat trade as what it is, a key booster of global economic growth, not a geo-political weapon. The near-death and high-rise unpopularity of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have proved not the death of free trade but rather the outcry for more inclusive trade arrangements, both local and global.
In the Middle East, the United States should be a responsible power, not a hit-and-run meddler. Ending the long-running blood shed in Syria and the threat of terrorism need to be at the core of his Mideast agenda. That is how the refugee crisis can be cured fundamentally.
The Trump White House also needs a re-think in the Asia-Pacific, the world's most animated economic region, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the tranquility and vitality there.
For that end, the threat of naming China a currency manipulator and blaming America's trade deficits on Beijing would be poor choices for the incoming U.S. administration as China's peaceful rise ought to mean more opportunities for the United States and the world, not something that should be balanced.
As President-elect Trump prepares to take over the world's most powerful country, he should know that the gravity of doing the right thing, though unpopular at times, is more important than keeping up with the poisonous promises of the campaign trail.