China and the United States engage in different ways with other countries. China knows what ASEAN member states really want, while the U.S. maintains the notion of “America first.” It’s only natural for ASEAN leaders to act in their national self-interest.

Expect China and the U.S. to remain in a state of strategic stalemate for a long time. The most dangerous moments in bilateral ties will be when the two countries strengths bump against one another. We must be fully prepared for that.

Some believe the U.S. has the ability to take on a two-ocean strategy — the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific — but China-Russia issues loom large. They will guide the approach to China by the West.

The U.S. effort to impede China’s rise is in conflict with its regional strategy to gain benefits. To whip up its allies, it makes groundless accusations against China, but these are unlikely to persuade other countries to become America’s anti-China vanguard.

The innovation allowed the United States to lay aside its ideological “domino theory” in Asia and transformed China and the United States from enemies to friends. It also inspired a great political awakening in other countries.

As the anniversary of President Nixon’s secret trip to China in February 1972 approaches, it’s critical to recall the dramatic changes that occurred between China, the United States, and the world.

The positive turn initiated by Richard Nixon 50 years ago seems to have ground to a halt. The China-U.S. relationship has hit a low point. But while America has come to regard China as its primary strategic competitor, there are ways to get back on track.

Past experience is a guide for the future, so what can we learn today from the normalization of China-U.S. relations? First, we must be realistic. Second, we must be willing to break conventional rules.

China is interwoven with the American economy and far more open and free than it was in 1972. If ideology did not prevent normalization when Nixon broke the ice, it should certainly not impede bilateral relations today.

In the age of globalization, foreign policy sways our daily life more than people could imagine. A trade war leads to soaring price of consumer goods, which means you have to pay more for groceries, and sanctions on solar panels could mean more greenhouse gas emission, which creates greater peril of climate change. Disturbingly, Washington’s current China policy, a policy that could mean the difference between war and peace, prosperity and destitution, is based on some seriously misleading claims.