China and the US need to be vigilant toward the new challenges in their bilateral relations, maintain strategic restraint and change the pattern of their interactions if they are to avoid unthinkingly entering a new Cold War.

China-US interdependence should prevent the two countries from entering a Cold War. Mutually assured destruction will prevent a hot war.

Labeling China and Russia revisionist powers is a declaration of a new Cold War.

America’s biggest enemy today is neither China nor Russia, but its own identity crisis. Resorting to out-of-date thinking to seek a new “balancing” strategy of realigned alliances makes no sense in today’s economically interdependent world. Turning potential friends into foes, on the other hand, could lead the country in a terrible direction.

The main challenges for the post-Cold War world include: Control by and challenges from international capitals, legacies of the Cold War, asymmetrical threats such as terrorism, regional and transnational conflicts. The world must find proper and effective means to cope with such challenges and manage crises in a time when the mobility and interdependence of personnel, capital, goods and ideas are increasingly enhanced.

If big powers show courage and set aside their differences, and work together in a just, balanced intervention under the framework international law, they will not only help the Syrians out of hardship and avoid long-term instability in the region, they may also find a new way to prevent similar armed conflicts in the future.

Many China watchers believe that the ties between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest level since Tian’anment. President Xi can nevertheless reassure the American political establishment that he is leading China in the right direction, and not trying to turn it into another version of the former Soviet Union.

Many US scholars see confrontation as the key to preserving the global dominance of the US, even to the point of seeking regime change in China. That outdated outlook is dangerous to all parties in today’s world and a threat to stability.

Whether the world’s nations can adjust to changes and to work with instead of working against the new arrivals on the world stage is going to be a major test. China has chosen to integrate itself into the international order, and has greatly benefited from being part of it, so China should be seen as a partner, not a competitor.

American hawks who regard China as an implacable geopolitical adversary exhibit an unhealthy foreign policy perspective. But U.S. leaders and the American public also need to be careful not to lean too far in the other direction—toward an appeasement policy toward Beijing.