Both the Chinese and U.S. governments welcomed last week’s decision of the Noble Prize Committee to award the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) its annual peace prize. However, while Beijing and Washington cooperate on most chemical weapons issues, they do differ on some.

Debates have been spurred over the strategies of the United States’ new Air-Sea Battle (ASB) military concept that addresses the scenario of Chinese aggression. Complications such as likely nuclear escalation may keep fighting off mainland China and lead to proxy wars that will require building strong military relationships with allies that can keep Chinese and U.S. ambitions in check.

Tao Wenzhao provides a brief review of the events that have taken place since the beginning of this year, showing that the two countries have reached and started the process of building a new model of major-country relations.

While US attention on China can often become unfocused due to the “crisis du jour”, Joan Johnson-Freese notes the importance of maintaining a consistent and balanced policy towards China.

The China-US relationship is the most critical in today’s world. With the continued focus on the US pivot to Asia, many question the stability of the relationship as well as the goals of the two parties. While the US and China have differences, they should not view each other as threats, but rather seek to promote and develop their relationship.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a speech at the Brookings Institution on 20 September 2013, sharing his thoughts on the way toward a new model of major-country relations between China and the United States.

Increased military exchanges and cooperation between China and the US can be regarded as a step towards building a new type of Sino-US military relationship, writes Wu Zurong.

To date, the initial suggestions of dialogues on a new type of major-power relations from both China and the US have predictably focused more on what each side wants the other to do rather than on what both sides must do. This essay by David M. Lampton aims to move the discussion forward by specifying the economic and security domains in which cooperation needs to be initiated or enhanced and by making specific policy proposals.

Although the recent S&ED and SSD discussions and the Xi-Obama summit highlighted many points of agreement between the U.S. and China, the coming months will focus on some of the more difficult issues in the relationship such as military-to-military exchanges and trade disputes.

At the Sunnyland summit, Chinese president Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama pledged to establish a “new type of relationship between the major powers” and to upgrade the military relationship to a new level, writes Zhou Bo.