CHINA US Focus - Perspectives shaping the world's most important bilateral relationship

The Sino-US relationship is multifaceted, involving both competition and cooperation. Given the belief that a win-win result will be achieved only through cooperation, it is sensible to cling to the latter as a policy choice.   The importance of cooperation has always been a part of China’s traditional culture. Several celebrated dictums and idioms pronounce [...]

Both China and the United States stand as one of the leading world powers, and shoulder a historic responsibility for the development of the human society and the progress of world civilization. As a matter of fact, China and the United States have already started to explore the type of relationship to be developed between them.

The strategic competition between China and the United States has intensified in recent years. The Middle East (including Western Asia and North Africa), by contrast, is neither an area of deep contention between Washington and Beijing, nor an area that China exercises its strategic influence adequately.

In a world facing growing food shortages, water scarcity, climate change, and the social instabilities they cause,any responsible path forward must rely on international cooperation.

While economic disputes are real, a shared interest in economic growth seems likely to keep the two countries working together. The danger of military confrontation looms much greater. The basic problem is simple: the U.S. is determined to maintain its dominance in East Asia, while China is equally determined to free itself from American military threats.

In early May, I gave an interview to the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper arguing that China was probably ‘the loneliest rising great power in world history’. Not aiming for hyperbole, the assessment was based on the fact that China has few trusted allies in Asia even as it became the second largest economy in [...]