With the United States talking about an incremental approach, the dispute could drag on indefinitely. But both sides have incentive to call it quits — preferably sooner than later.

Business leaders have begun to realize that disengagement with China will have a huge impact on the world order and inflict tremendous losses on major U.S. companies.

By all appearances, the goal of anti-China hawks is to suppress the country’s rise and gain flexibility to interfere around the globe. But decoupling will only create a political and economic crisis.

A tragic sensibility after the experience of two world wars compelled the United States to establish a new international order backed by American power. After decades of relative peace and prosperity, however, this sensibility is waning – as the United States demonstrates a lack of collective will to maintain its position on the global stage. As China increasingly assumes the position of a world power, it must maintain its tragic sensibility and awareness of crisis.

Since the 1970s, China-U.S. relations have been largely guided by the principle of “coordination.” Over the past ten years however, U.S. policy has grown increasingly aggressive, based on its primary objective that it not cede power or space to China in the current international system. As a result, a discourse of “struggle” has come to embody China’s U.S. policy, setting the stage for a century-long competition between established and rising powers.

In a fluid negotiating environment where some issues cannot be solved through a trade deal, an interim agreement may be best for both sides. Washington should consider the idea carefully.

The growing anti-China sentiment in the United States is counterproductive to the trade relationship between the two countries. Americans must understand that this bilateral trade relationship is, in fact, beneficial to both nations.

China and the United States find themselves in a situation that is gradually souring, but the current US strategy towards China is not exclusively a Trumpian one.

This is no ordinary time in US-China relations. While President Trump lacks consistency, predictability, factuality on many areas in the US-China relationship, there is still a major lack of reciprocity in the US-China trade relationship. Even so, there still exists a viable pathway to a US-China relationship that is mutually beneficial and politically sustainable.

A divide is growing between veteran U.S. China policy experts and a new generation that display a far more hawkish approach. This is the result of shifts in both domestic and global contexts. Researchers can play an important diplomatic role in enhancing mutual understanding and thereby reducing tensions.