"China wants to get a sense, are you really serious about figuring out some way of turning down the heat or not," says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science. "And they have reason to be suspicious on where we're going with the electoral cycle in the U.S. and how risky it is."

The Moscow summit has the effect of underscoring and reinforcing the status of “Russia as a junior partner with China—economically, militarily and diplomatically,” Robert Murrett, professor of practice of public administration and international affairs, tells the Associated Press.

Ryan Monarch, assistant professor of economics, says it would be more difficult for China's manufacturing industry to transition to the high-end amid deteriorating U.S.-China relations and the decoupling of business between the two countries.

While Russia’s use of the yuan doesn’t mean the end of dollar supremacy, it may usher in the beginning of a more fractured system that could ultimately blunt the U.S.’s ability to use financial sanctions as a weapon, says Daniel McDowell, associate professor of political science.

“There are just a lot more things in the atmosphere we have to worry about,” says retired Vice Adm. Robert Murrett, professor of practice of public administration and international affairs.

"A bizarre situation with this balloon, in particular, is best understood as an attempt to kind of clarify what the terms of engagement are," says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science. "And what you’ve seen over the past couple of days is that surveillance aircraft at a certain level of altitude are now probably more likely to happen and are more at risk of being shot dow," he says.

With [Chinese President] Xi now signaling a shift to less rancorous bilateral ties, “I expect [Xie Feng, China's new ambassador to the U.S.] to be more kumbaya-ish,” says Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science and expert on Chinese elite politics.

"This is the first time since Tiananmen that there have been national protests—they’re not really nation-wide, they’re in about 16 different provinces—about one issue," says Robert Daly, adjunct professor in the Maxwell-in-Washington program.

Chinese students do not necessarily come to the U.S. because they love America or are interested in it, Ma tells South China Morning Post. "They want to get American degrees," she says, and use them to get better jobs back home.

"China and North Korea will need to calibrate future actions, and not underestimate Japan's willingness to assert its presence throughout the region," Robert Murrett, professor of practice of practice of public administration and international affairs, tells International Business Times.