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The Future of U.S.-China Relations: Competition, Coexistence, Cooperation

What is the future of U.S.-China relations? On Friday, November 18, 2022, the Harvard University Fairbank Center and the  Harvard Kennedy School Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia  hosted a  symposium  in Cambridge that brought together leading voices on China to discuss the future of bilateral relations between Washington and Beijing. With more than 30 world-leading experts speaking on politics, economics, security, journalism, law, and diplomacy, this symposium set out what is at stake for the world’s most-important bilateral relationship. The conference was produced with generous support from the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations and the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego.

Mark Wu and Tony Saich on Coexistence 2.0

Read Mark Wu and Tony Saich’s opening remarks from our symposium

The event marked the first time since 2020 that top China scholars in the U.S. have gathered at Harvard to grapple with the policy implications of a China whose domestic and international stance has changed dramatically under the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping. There was some disagreement about what measures the U.S. should pursue—but scant optimism that relations will improve during the Xi era. Highlighting the challenges the U.S. faces in dealing with China, Harvard Business School Professor Meg Rithmire said, “China has shifted its political economic model to something that is incompatible with global capitalism as it’s been practiced in the last generation.” Xi’s top-down, “personalistic dictatorship” has “lead to…overreach,” said Susan Shirk, Director of the UC San Diego 21st Century China Center. Examples of changes in Chinese policy include “Wolf Warrior diplomacy, picking fights with your neighbors, provoking the United States; and internally as well, with ramped up repression and a more statist economy.” All of this requires the U.S. and other liberal societies to rethink seriously their terms of engagement with China.

Opening the symposium, Mark Wu, Director of the Fairbank Center, highlighted the current challenges at the heart of the U.S.-China relationship: “The planet’s two leading nations are locked in a strategic rivalry.” Given the entrenched differences in the two countries’ political, economic, and social governance models, and the leaders’ conviction that their model is superior, Wu asserted that growing conflict will be with us for some time: The reality is that in multiple domains, “one [side] seeks to change the status quo, while the other seeks to preserve it.” “Yet even amid this rivalry,” he suggested that “there is a need for cooperation,” citing climate change, global diseases, and terrorism as examples. Wu also pointed out: “The vast majority of our citizens of these two countries seek the same thing: material security, physical security, opportunity, and a better future for our children.” In opening the symposium, he articulated his hope that “today’s panels provoke even more dialogue with each other…as we find ways to manage [the] difficult times and choppy waters ahead in U.S.-China relations.”

Also opening the event, Tony Saich , Director of the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, emphasized that “without U.S.-China participation in a number of key areas, it will be difficult to achieve global public goods in the global commons, in global collaboration, and in global regulation.” Pointing to the U.S.’s recent decision to ban chip and semiconductor exports to China, as well as the national security strategy, Saich asked: “What is Washington’s end game with this and with these actions? Is it just to effect change in certain practices in China, particularly focusing on those where there’s a sense it doesn’t comply with WTO agreements, other agreements it has signed onto, or is it really to hamper China’s economic development and prevent it from being in any way a challenge to U.S. hegemony?”

Chinese Views on U.S.-China Relations

The mood at the symposium reflected the growing pessimism about U.S.-China relations. In the opening panel, two prominent Chinese experts on the U.S. confirmed that this view is shared within China as well.

Above: Yasheng Huang moderates the opening panel: “Chinese Views on U.S.-China Relations.” Below: Wei Da speaks via Zoom.

Daojiong Zha speaks at the symposium via Zoom

Zha Daojiong, Professor of International Political Economy at Peking University, noted that the U.S. remains unrivaled in its power, but its key problem is its domestic income distribution.  Moreover, for China, because of its needs to access overseas markets and energy inputs, “interdependence is natural and structural, including that with the U.S.” Consequently, Zha emphasized, “There is hardly any basis for China to contemplate a Cold War 2.0 as a modality of relations with the U.S.”  Yet, while it may be “difficult for us to come up with a timetable or genealogy of what has gone wrong in U.S.-China relations,” he admitted that “the reality is that we have had six years of minimal contact between the U.S. and China.” Zha also remarked that cooperation between the U.S. and Soviet Union was, in some ways, stronger than that between the U.S. and China today, pointing to U.S. sanctions enacted amid a pandemic as an example.

Da Wei, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, also struck a candid tone: “On the status of the current China-U.S. relations, I think, of course, it’s bad.” Da further noted that all of the experts with whom he has interacted on both sides are “very pessimistic” with “many U.S. observers believe that we are already in a new Cold War with China” but this has yet to become the mainstream view in Beijing. However, in light of the recent Biden-Xi meeting in Bali, Da offered his hope “that next year we can gradually stabilize bilateral relations by increasing exchanges between officials and people.”

For Zha, the framing of the symposium as searching for a “coexistence” between the U.S. and China was itself problematic and the wrong historical lesson to draw as the two sides try to define the bilateral relationship. Zha pointed to his subsequent  op-ed  elaborating on this point in the  South China Morning Post . Yet as MIT Professor Yasheng Huang noted, “Whether or not ‘Cold War 2’ is the right framing, it does describe the anxiety of many in the U.S.” given that the relationship is no longer moving in a positive direction.

China’s Realities at Home

China faces an increasingly challenging domestic political environment. The next panel focused on how these challenges shape the government’s actions, which, in turn, contribute to growing tensions in its relationship with the rest of the world. The speakers agreed that Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s autocratic and ideologically driven governance style has effectively silenced alternative voices—contributing to increased domestic repression and more assertive moves internationally.

The panel began with a discussion of the question about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party itself and its objectives. David Shambaugh, Professor and Director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, characterized it as “schizophrenic” in its nature. Reflecting on the report delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the recent 20th Communist Party Congress, Shambaugh highlighted that “on one hand you had hubris, pride, confidence, even braggadocio” while on the other hand, “there’s a profound sense of insecurity and defensiveness.” He then warned that an insecure being “frequently overreacts, overcompensates, and acts in hubristic kinds of ways.” Furthermore, the current regime under Xi, Shambaugh suggested, is “neo-totalitarian.” Of concern are attributes including the disciplined, military-like hierarchy, the return of dogmatic ideology, and the reemergence of a personality cult. Overall, Shambaugh argued, “This is a very insecure regime, fearful, even paranoid,” leading to diminishing trust of civil society and the growth of the surveillance state.

The panelists also agreed that the narrowing of political debate within China has restricted the capacity for alternative views within the Communist Party to surface and compete with Xi Jinping’s ideological priorities. Shambaugh highlighted the lack of feedback within the Party itself and bemoaned the disappearance of “pragmatism vis-à-vis the economy or foreign policy.” He also highlighted the growing emphasis within the recent Party report on security and national security threats and the de-emphasis on the economy. 

Speakers on the “China’s Realities at Home” panel.

Ed Cunningham introduces a panel on “China’s Realities at Home”

Arthur Kroeber, Founding Partner of Gavekal, argued that Xi’s prioritization on security and control is less of a break from the recent past and more of a continuity of an enduring historical tension that has always marked Communist Party rule in China. While “the primary objective has always been to maintain the monopoly of power of the Communist Party,” Kroeber noted that historically “the growth agenda has always been a close second” in order to allow the Party to “maintain a system that is domestically prosperous and internationally influential.”  After discussing China’s desire to become a regional power at the expense of the U.S., the important role to be played by technology in this quest, and the Party’s recent efforts to assert control over tech companies, Kroeber proclaimed, “I view the situation now as essentially a continuation of this long-term struggle that the Party has had for decades to maintain the control and growth agendas, which are clearly in tension, but clearly to a degree complementary.”

Kroeber further pointed to a trend in China to promote domestic industry over reliance on foreign imports: “You have a clear self-reliance agenda in China, a recognition that the U.S. is hostile and that U.S. capital and technology will no longer be available, so there is a need to promote domestic industries and technologies.” However, Kroeber suggested the near-term implications may be different for foreign firms than Western policymakers who seek greater technological de-coupling. Kroeber highlighted that China has yet to retaliate strongly against U.S. firms, even as U.S. government increases sanctions. “[T]hey want to be self-reliant, but they realize they can’t be. And so the revealed strategy is to actually try and increase the interdependence as a defensive hedge against a more hostile and unpredictable world.”

The conversation then shifted to issues concerning domestic inequities, a theme mentioned earlier by Zha Dajiong. Ya-Wen Lei , Associate Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, highlighted several challenges confronting the Chinese government, including gaping income disparities across society. “The government, Xi Jinping, is trying very hard to emphasize the role of ideology. But the problem is, when you emphasize ideology that much, how do you deal with the enormous gap between the official socialist principles and the reality of high inequality?” Lei asked. “When people see inequality as a serious problem, it’s more likely that they will have lower trust of the government, especially the central government.”

Susan Shirk, Chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego and author of a new book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise , noted that China’s behavior in recent years has fueled the rise of “counter-coalitions,” an international backlash against China. “What I mean by overreach is not just ambition, but taking things too far both in foreign and domestic policy in a way that snaps back on yourself.”

She pointed to Deng Xiaoping’s legacy as a reason for how Xi Jinping was able to concentrate his power since 2013, “Deng had a very sophisticated understanding of the problems of the Mao era and he talked about over-concentration of authority and a system that led to arbitrary decision making. [Deng] set up this system of collective leadership as a check, but he did not pursue de-Maoization deeply enough or fundamentally enough. He was not willing to allow for a legislature or a legal system to have independent authority to check the actions of Party officials. And that’s one reason that the collective leadership did not survive.”

Referring to Xi’s current tenure, Shirk remarked that “Xi Jinping has put tremendous top-down pressure on subordinates…, to survive by somehow proving their loyalty,” adding that the ongoing anti-corruption campaign (“which is simultaneously a purge”) has affected up to 5 million Party officials. “This has led over compliance. The incentives lead to this overreach—Wolf Warrior diplomacy, picking fights with your neighbors, provoking the United States; and internally as well, with ramped up repression and a more statist economy. The tragedy, of course, is that Xi Jinping is not more secure as a result of this system. In fact, [he has created] a state of paranoia.” Shirk predicted that Xi’s third term “is likely to be even more extreme.”

Overall, the panelists were not optimistic that the domestic challenges would lead the regime to adjust in ways that would improve, rather than worsen, bilateral relations. Instead, Shirk predicted that Xi’s third term “is likely to be even more extreme.”

Competition & Cooperation in Security, Ideas and Rules

On the panel on U.S.-China competition in security, Graham Allison, opened by noting historical parallels between the contemporary and the U.S.’s rise in the nineteenth century. “I try to put this in a historical canvas, and I ask about the rise of the U.S. and Teddy Roosevelt, and what he thought about having foreigners in our hemisphere… In terms of a historical canvas, doesn’t it seem quite normal that if and as China becomes bigger and stronger, it will seek to be more influential in its region?” The panelists then proceeded to discuss Allison’s question of whether China is determined to displace the U.S. as the preeminent power in Asia.

Most panelists agreed that China was trying to seek to achieve this objective.  Andrew Erickson , Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard, noted that he is “very concerned,” because the neo-totalitarian regime discussed in the prior panel is “engaged in dangerous overreach” and has “few acceptances or credible commitments to durable constraints and guardrails.”  M. Taylor Fravel, Director of MIT’s Security Studies Program, noted that it is not surprising that China would aspire to achieve regional hegemony, but that the more relevant question before us is “how quickly is China trying to achieve this objective and at what cost.”

Speaking to China’s regional power, Fravel noted that China “has a complex security environment in that it has to balance its strategic priorities in all directions.” This environment, he argued, means that China is heightened to questions of regional security and its need to ensure control over its neighborhood. Joseph Nye, Professor Emeritus and Former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, further added that simply because China has an aspiration does not mean that it will succeed, particularly when the U.S. can mobilize a much larger portion of the world and recombine talents more effectively than China at present. 

Jessica Chen Weiss , Professor of Government at Cornell University, however, cautioned against a sense of inevitability that might grow from drawing parallels between contemporary politics and the past: “There are important structural drivers and historical analogies in the U.S.-China relationship, but we shouldn’t rely on these parallels to explain contemporary outcomes,” she said. “In doing so, we remove both our and China’s agency to choose alternate options.” 

The panelists then turned to discuss thoughts presented in Chen Weiss’s recent  Foreign Affairs  piece criticizing “zero-sum competition” between the U.S. and China. Allison recounted Chen Weiss’s argument that that the current Biden Administration policy toward China not only risks “catastrophic conflict” but also “threatens to undermine the sustainability of American leadership in the world and the vitality of American society and democracy at home.”

Chen Weiss kicked off the discussion by emphasizing that the goal of her Foreign Affairs essay was to create space to ensure “that beneath these words of an inclusive, free, and open world that we seek to create and lead, that we make sure that the actions that we take are in support of that vision.” 

Nye agreed with Chen Weiss’s assessment that the U.S. is overreacting: “I feel we’ve used metaphors related to fear and structural inevitably too much.” Fravel too agreed with Chen Weiss’s cautioning about reading history as the future; “I worry about the U.S. ‘overreacting’ to challenges, and Washington using arguments of inevitability about the direction that China might take in the future. “  Commenting on China’s soft power potential, Nye further noted that in theory “soft power can be a positive-sum game. The idea that China becomes more attractive in U.S. society and vice versa is a gain for both of us.” However, Nye lamented that reality is not moving in this direction: “Unfortunately the trend is towards the opposite direction because of increasing nationalism.”

By contrast,  Andrew Erickson , Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College and Nonresident Associate at the Fairbank Center, did not think that the U.S. was overreacting in its policy.  Erickson struck a pessimistic tone for the future of U.S.-China cooperation: “I don’t see a basis for deep cooperation coming out of the Xi-Biden meeting. Looking at Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and China’s approach to Ukraine: we are unfortunately not in a credible place.”

Competition & Cooperation in Trade, Investment, and Technology

Opening the first afternoon panel, Mark Wu, Director of the Fairbank Center and Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School, posed a question to panelists of what is “the level of partial decoupling or selective decoupling” desired and in service of what end goal.  Expanding on his question, he posited that the U.S. and China had incompatible long-term goals for technology, trade and investment; therefore, cooperation would prove difficult and the two sides were bound to clash on several dimensions related to technology, cyberspace and U.S. dollar primacy.

The panelists agreed with this characterization. Dan Rosen, Co-Founder and Partner, Rhodium Group, suggested that the halt in market reforms in China has led to a reassessment in the U.S. of further economic engagement. “The core elite Chinese commitment to make headway toward market economy approaches, how to organize a society for prosperity, how to put the balance on economic welfare, that has hit a ceiling beyond which additional economic modernization requires some political liberalization, which is not yet accepted at all,” Rosen said. “American concern is about systemic incompatibility. The basis for economic permissiveness from the U.S. has changed, because it was contingent on where Beijing was trying to get to, through painful and difficult economic reforms that it  did  commit to and do over decades—until pretty recently when it started to have second thoughts.”

Elizabeth Economy speaks at the symposium

Dan Rosen speaks at the symposium

The panel then turned to discuss the recent shift in U.S. technology policy toward China which has led to the fencing off a greater portion of cutting-edge technology in certain sectors from Chinese firms.  Wu asked panelists whether they thought this policy shift was an overreaction or not. 

In response, Meg Rithmire , Professor of Business of Administration at Harvard Business School, answered yes and no. She asserted that given national security concerns, there is good reason to increase technology controls, as “China has shifted its political economic model to something that is incompatible with global capitalism as it’s been practiced in the last generation.” Furthermore, she added, “It’s impossible to basically say that a Chinese firm will not one day become an asset of the Chinese state vis-à-vis the United States or elsewhere.” While these are very legitimate concerns, she added that there is nevertheless the danger that this could lead to a policy outcome that over-controls or over-excludes, citing the Department of Justice’s China Initiative and Department of State’s Clean Network Initiative as examples.

Elizabeth Economy, Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, responded that there is a “ramping up of [Chinese] national security laws and intelligence laws . . . around data sovereignty [and] cyber sovereignty.”  This has led to a more radical shift in U.S. policy, which Economy suggested is well-justified for several reasons, including: “an economic and security rationale” and a “new appreciation of the challenge that China poses.” In addition, she added: “There’s a new thinking about threats and challenges since Covid-19 that have reshaped how we consider threats and challenges to do with supply chains in the U.S.-China relationship.”

Rosen further added that given the changing nature of technology as well as uncertainties over how “technologies will be used by the state in the context of markets, by the Chinese, in the future,” it is likely that U.S. technology restrictions will continue to evolve dynamically in the future.  Economy and Rithmire both agreed, leading Rosen to exclaim that the three panelists “are in consensus that the techno-specific policies taken by the Biden Administration lately are pretty well fit to a reasonable understanding of the situation.”

Economy further noted how economic cooperation becomes even more difficult when China sets preconditions and is inflexible: “The U.S. is willing to cooperate bilaterally on a range of issues, but China needs to show that it is also willing. China has a lot of red lines, and when it shuts down cooperation in one area because of issues in another, that makes cooperation very difficult.”

Rithmire also highlighted a set of other challenges to China’s future development—as it sorts out its economic relationship with the rest of the world: “Can China’s state mandate technological intervention to get out of the middle-income trap? Can China develop financially without the rule of law? China needs to work out its fiscal and financial systems, and that means cooperating with global financial markets.”

Opening a panel exploring how other Asian countries are grappling with the rise of China and U.S.-China tensions, Fatema Z. Sumar, Executive Director of the Center for International Development, noted that Asian countries are “caught in many ways between the U.S. and China infrastructure politics.” She asked how Asian countries can balance concerns about Chinese loans becoming “debt traps” with the more positive aspects of Chinese investment, and what the U.S. can offer to Asia versus the negative impacts of trade sanctions on China.

Ed Case joins the symposium via Zoom from Washington D.C.

Ian Chong joins the symposium via Zoom from Singapore

Ian Chong, a professor at National University of Singapore, noted the challenge for Southeast Asian countries: “The default position has been, ‘we don’t want to choose sides.’ But in terms of having more positive options [that would help us] buffer ourselves, we haven’t really come up with a solution.” Asian countries, including Singapore, he said, “are a bit stuck. There’s a lot of fear of punishment from the PRC, and there’s a lot less confidence in U.S. commitment and engagement with the region than before.”

U.S. Representative Ed Case, who co-chairs the Pacific Islands Caucus, suggested that countries in Asia have concerns about China’s intentions. “Everybody wishes everybody would get along, that we weren’t in this larger geopolitical challenge for whether the international rules-based order will continue or whether there will be an attempt to supplant it or to create an alternative international rules-based order, which would force its own set of choices,” Case said. “And so it is a very uncertain time.”

Bopha Phorn, a Cambodian journalist who is currently a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, described Cambodia’s warming relations with China as a double-edged sword. On one hand, China’s investment in infrastructure—roads, infrastructure, bridges, power—“has been very important for Cambodia to operate the garment industry, the most important sector of the Cambodian economy.” On the other hand, Phorn pointed out the increase in corruption that has coincided with Chinese investment.

Toward Coexistence 2.0: What Should the U.S. Do?

Speaking on the final panel of the day, experts expressed differing views on how the U.S. should address China’s rise. Melanie Hart, China Policy Coordinator for the Office of Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment, noted that the downturn in U.S.-China relations is “hard” for experts who have spent their lives working on China. “But one thing I want to highlight is, it takes two to tango, and we have to deal with the China we’ve got,” Hart said. “We have to deal with the Xi Jinping, the PRC government we have at this point in time.”

In these circumstances, Hart emphasized the need for “resolute action to defend U.S. national interests, to defend U.S. national security, and uphold American values.” However, she added that the U.S. is also “keeping that door open to collaboration with the PRC and actively seeking it.” Hart pointed to efforts by the U.S. to collaborate with China on climate and food security issues but added that Beijing has yet to respond with specific policy measures. “There haven’t been big moments of pomp and circumstance to celebrate…collaboration, because we haven’t gotten much back yet,” Hart said, adding that “intense competition requires intense diplomacy.”

“We have to really ask ourselves, why did [the age of U.S. engagement with China] end? …There’s a tragedy here which has a great deal to do with Xi Jinping’s nature, and his deep suspiciousness, which is a current that has flowed throughout Chinese contemporary history,” said Orville Schell, Director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. “There’s always been this deep abiding mistrust that what America was trying to do to China was to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party one way or another. And engagement was just another way to do that.” Xi Jinping, he added, “has sucked from the wellspring of Chairman Mao, who saw enemies everywhere, whose whole notion of the philosophical construct of the world was contradictions… That, alas, is the way Xi Jinping views the United States. In a climate like that, every approach [by the U.S.] just seems like another attempt to…overthrow the Chinese Communist Party.”

Bill Alford, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, posed the question: “From the viewpoint of promoting U.S. power and security, where should we situate ourselves, and what might principled engagement constitute? Is not exporting certain kinds of semiconductor technology to China promoting our power and security, or conversely, does it incentivize the Chinese to develop the same more quickly?”

Melanie Hart (right) speaks at the “Toward Coexistence 2.0” panel with Jude Blanchette (left)

Orville Schell speaks at the “Toward Coexistence 2.0” panel

In response, Robert Ross, Professor of Political Science at Boston College and a Fairbank Center Associate, noted that China’s behavior in the South China Seas is not surprising in the context of U.S. military dominance in the region since WWII. The U.S. “essentially created an American lake in the South China Sea, where U.S. naval vessels could go up to the Chinese territorial waters, sometimes into them with impunity,” Ross said. “No rising power would accept that, and we would expect China to push back, and this is what China is doing.”

Ross criticized the U.S. response to China’s rise. “We are determined to not allow China to be Number One. Period.” Through recent U.S. official statements and policies, he said, “We have made it clear: We must dominate the world order and not allow China to influence the world order.” To that end, Ross argued that the U.S. has launched a trade war, a tech war, and an ideology war, while changing its Taiwan policy. “The cost to America is very high,” he said, both geopolitically and domestically. 

Ross’s advice? “The first step forward would be to accept bipolarity.  And then you compete. And you are able to compete surgically… You do what Europe is doing, what Japan is doing… say not all technology, say this particular company, that particular company… But for the most part you can maintain cooperation in technology and trade.”

In response to Ross’s comments, Hart stressed that “our aim is not to contain China’s rise. We welcome China to develop economically, to have flourishing exchanges with the U.S. in ways that are on a level playing field, and that don’t undermine U.S. national interests or universal values.” She defended U.S. measures to ban the sale of certain semiconductors to China, stressing that the barred items represent less than 1% of U.S. semiconductor sales to China and “focus specifically on high-end chips, high-end manufacturing equipment, and super computing capabilities used for weapons of mass destruction, China’s military modernization, and mass surveillance in Xinjiang.”

On the question of how to prevent war over Taiwan, Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair of Chinese Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stressed that both the U.S. and China have responsibility: “China should take much more significant steps to assure that it is not intending to use force to bring about a solution (on Taiwan,)” he said, “and the U.S. should be clear and consistent on its one-China policy.” A visit by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Taiwan, he noted, would be counterproductive, unnecessarily provocative toward Beijing.

At the same time, Blanchette emphasized the importance of thinking through the consequences of U.S. policy toward China: “The challenge is to remember the humanity in all this, to go from an abstract notion of ‘The Party’ or China and remember that we are talking about issues of human dignity. When we say things like ‘we want China’s economy to slow,’ what we’re really saying is that we want all the negative effects that come with slower growth. Even if we have to make tough decisions in policy making, we’re fundamentally talking about human beings and their dignity.”

What Does History Tell Us?

Closing the symposium, Winston Lord, former U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, noted that “when [the U.S.] opened up to China, we felt that over the long run…that China in the distant future would reassert itself. But nobody could have envisioned their astonishing growth and how fast they’ve reached the point of becoming one of the world’s two great powers.” He also recounted how individual leaders can make an enormous difference in shaping the trajectory of the bilateral relationship.

Looking to the past, Ambassador Lord emphasized the unique moment that we currently find ourselves in: “For first time in history, China is dealing with the outside world as an equal. It’s a complicated psychology to deal with— a mixture of self-confidence and arrogance, mixed with a sense of humiliation and vengeance. In Xi Jinping, you see self-confidence and grand plans mixed with paranoia …and a feeling of being challenged by the West.”

In thinking about the future direction for U.S.-China relations, the ambassador struck a more positive note than others had at the symposium: “Frankly we should try communication, we should try negotiation,” he said. “I feel that the key to our success and better relations with China is getting our own act together here at home… saving our democracy, reinvesting in our future to be competitive, then aligning with other countries for greater leverage against China, and on top of that competing peacefully, is not only the best course for America and our policy around the world, but I think it will gain China’s respect and attention.”

Overall, Ambassador Lord felt that the current approach of dividing issues into three categories – possible cooperation, competitive realms, and insoluble problems – is “the correct one” and “the one most apt to succeed.”  However, he closed his remarks to the conference with a grim reminder that “as long as Xi is in power, I’m pessimistic.”

Watch the panels from the symposium

Further reading: Fixing the U.S.-China Relationship

Katrina Northrop at The Wire China reports on the “Coexistence 2.0” symposium: “30 China experts got together to discuss how everything went so wrong and how it can be fixed.”

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Asia Society Policy Institute

Reflections on china and u.s.-china relations in 2021, a collection of speeches, articles, and essays by the hon. kevin rudd from 2021.

U.S. President Joe Biden meets with China's President Xi Jinping during a virtual summit from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, November 15, 2021. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

Full Report

The year 2021 turned out to be more decisive for China — and indeed for the world — than anyone could have predicted. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to beset humanity and isolate China from the rest of the world, 2021 also saw profound changes within China, from its politics to its economic policy settings, to its society, culture, and media.

It was a year that saw Chinese President Xi Jinping execute a major redirection of China’s economy, leaving behind the “let some people get rich first” ethos of Deng Xiaoping ’s “reform and opening” era, and launching a new period of “Common Prosperity,” intended to reduce economic inequality by firmly reasserting the role of the party and the state in the direction and operation of the national economy. But it also saw Xi’s ideological preference for state economic control begin to collide with hard economic reality as the accumulated risks of an investment-led growth model began to surface in the property market — epitomized by the slow-motion implosion of heavily indebted real estate giant Evergrande.

It was also a key political year for Xi, in which he sought to prepare for a critical year ahead in 2022 — when he will seek to secure a third term in office and potentially become leader for life — by pushing through a key resolution on Chinese Communist Party history, fortifying his political position by officially establishing a clear ideological separation between the party’s past eras of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping and the “new era” of Xi Jinping Thought.

Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions continued to rise — including in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and along the Sino-Indian border. A new U.S. president took office as Washington, the United States, and its allies sought to consolidate new mechanisms for advancing their own collective interests in the Indo-Pacific, to China’s growing alarm. But 2021 also saw Washington and Beijing take tentative steps to find a way to stabilize their relationship as rising tensions across every dimension of the U.S.-China relationship generated a growing awareness on both sides that the risk of unintended conflict is now becoming an all too real possibility.

As we begin 2022 — itself likely to be an even more pivotal year in Chinese and international politics — it is, therefore, all the more important that we understand what occurred in 2021 and why. That is exactly what this fourth annual volume of collected works by Asia Society President Kevin Rudd seeks to do. It contains selected essays, articles, and speeches that provide a series of insights into events as they unfolded over the course of the year. The world has some reasons to be hopeful, as we enter 2022, that this year can finally become a year of re-stabilization in some aspects of the U.S.-China relationship. But to get there, it is useful to reflect for a moment on what went wrong, and what went right, in the year of change that was 2021.

Individual Speeches and Essays From the Collection:

1. Biden Should Prioritize Reversing Trump’s Blanket Ban on Chinese and Other Foreign Students

An article published in the South China Morning Post, January 27, 2021

2. The Decade of Living Dangerously: The Impact of U.S.-China Strategic Competition on Asia

An address for the annual Goh Keng Swee Lecture, National University of Singapore, February 26, 2021

3. Beijing’s Early Reactions to the Biden Administration: Strategic Continuity and Tactical Change

An address to the Asia Society New York, March 18, 2021

4. Why the Quad Alarms China

 An essay originally published in Foreign Affairs, August 6, 2021

5. Xi Jinping's Pivot to the State

An address to the Asia Society New York, September 8, 2021

6. China Should Now Outline How It Will Reduce Domestic Carbon Emissions

An article originally published in Nikkei Asia, September 27, 2021

7. Understanding Evergrande

An address to the Asia Society New York, October 6, 2021

8. Understanding the Importance of Xi’s Historical Resolution at the Sixth Plenum

An article originally published in The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2021

9. Preventing a U.S.-China Nuclear Arms Race

An article originally published in Project-Syndicate, December 4, 2021

10. The Comprehensive Global Impact of COVID-19

An article originally published in Time, December 29, 2021

Book Release

Separately, the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Avoidable War Project, of which this series is a part, has culminated in the publication of a book on U.S.-China relations by Asia Society President Kevin Rudd , titled The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the U.S. and Xi Jinping's China . It offers a detailed strategic framework that Washington and Beijing could adopt to proactively manage the scope of their competition, provide space for global cooperation in defined areas of mutual interest, and ultimately avoid a catastrophic conflict.

Released in the United States on March 22, 2022, as a publication of PublicAffairs , The Avoidable War is now available to order from Amazon.com , Barnes & Noble , and other booksellers. The Avoidable War is also available in Australia March 30 (by Hachette Australia) and in the United Kingdom  April 14.

• Reflections on China and U.S.-China Relations in 2021 (PDF, 8.27 MB)

Related Reports

The Avoidable War: The Decade of Living Dangerously

The Avoidable War: The Case for Managed Strategic Competition

The Avoidable War: U.S.-China Relations and the End of Strategic Engagement

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Taiwan, Trade, Tech and More: A Tense Era in U.S.-China Ties

The Biden administration has called managing America’s relationship with Beijing “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.”

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By Raymond Zhong and Steven Lee Myers

No relationship is shaping the planet more. And no relationship seethes, across such a wide and consequential set of issues, with more tension and mistrust.

The United States and China are profoundly at odds on how people and economies should be governed. The two powers jockey for influence beyond their own shores, compete in technology, and maneuver for military advantages on land , in outer space and in cyberspace . They are also major trade and business partners, making their rivalry more complex than those of the Cold War , to which it is sometimes compared.

A virtual summit in November between President Biden and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, produced no breakthrough steps toward better relations. Instead, both sides reiterated points of longstanding contention, agreeing only on the need to prevent competition from escalating into broader conflict.

Only three weeks later, the White House announced that American officials, though not athletes, would boycott the Winter Olympics that open in Beijing in February. It was a diplomatic snub that officials in China angrily vowed to avenge. Australia followed the American lead , and several others have signaled that they would find ways to protest China’s human rights abuses, casting a show on an event officials hoped would be a showcase of the country’s international standing.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has called managing the relationship with China “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.” Yet China has vexed American policymakers ever since Mao’s armies took control of the nation — “liberated” it, in the Communist Party’s parlance — in 1949.

In the decades that followed, the party drove the economy to ruin. Then the government changed course, and China got much, much richer. Now, Mr. Xi, China’s leader since 2013, wants to restore the nation’s primacy in the global order.

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US–China Relations: Nationalism, the Trade War, and COVID-19

• Original Paper
• Published: 04 October 2020
• Volume 14 , pages 23–40, ( 2021 )

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• Brandon M. Boylan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3473-2894 1 ,
• Jerry McBeath 2 &
• Bo Wang 3  

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The trade war between the USA and China has shocked many across the world. A disruption to the interdependence of the two largest economies seemed unfathomable. However, in an effort to thwart China’s economic practices and boost the US economy, President Trump’s administration levied tariffs on Chinese imports shortly after taking office, moving US foreign economic policy from liberalism, practiced for decades, to protectionism. China has retaliated, and the trade war continues today. With conceptual insights from the nationalism literature, we explore the nationalist roots of the trade war from both the US and Chinese perspectives. In the USA, the Trump administration’s plan to achieve energy autonomy, decrease reliance on foreign resources, and reinvigorate the manufacturing sector has led to protectionist policies, the othering of China, and hence the trade war. Although reluctant to enter the conflict, China has rebuffed the USA, resisting and counterattacking US actions, owing to a long-felt sense of persecution in the global space and an eagerness to participate fully, and lead in some issue areas, in international affairs. The conflict continues into the COVID-19 era, marked by US scapegoating of China and hits to economic performance. Until both sides are convinced they have achieved their goals, or the USA undergoes an administration change, the conflict will likely continue.

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1 Introduction

Linking the two largest economies, the US–China trade relationship is the world’s most important. However, in recent years, nationalism in each country, the trade war, and COVID-19 have strained this relationship. Guided by the literature on nationalism, we explore how rising nationalist frustrations in both the USA and China have contributed to the trade war, a conflict exacerbated in the COVID-19 era. While they have common elements, the sources of nationalism in the two countries are different. In the USA, a growing segment of the domestic public, believing it lacked political representation and protection of its values, responded to an “America First” agenda, culminating in the election of Donald Trump. In return, President Trump has continued to oppose China for domestic political support, particularly from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors and from an ethnically and religiously homogeneous base. In China, political leaders resented the lack of global political status commensurate with rapid economic growth and rising military might. They demanded more respect for their sphere of influence, and they mobilized against US threats to Chinese sovereignty. Indeed, China has aspirations to global leadership status on par with the USA and Russia.

In this article, we first provide the main features of the US–China trade war. We then highlight insights from the nationalism literature to frame the ways in which nationalist grievances in the USA and China have contributed to the ongoing trade dispute. From the US side, we examine the push for energy independence, the revival of manufacturing, and internal and external xenophobia—factors that have led to the scapegoating of China and motivated the conflict. From the China side, we assess historical victimization, economic reforms and internationalism, and leadership in the international community. Feeling a sense of historical repression, and with a goal of being a full participant in global affairs, China has asserted economic and political power in the trade conflict. Throughout, we discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the trade war.

2 Background: The US–China Trade War (2016–present)

During his presidential election campaign, Donald Trump routinely condemned China for what he and others believed were unfair trade practices and decried its trade surplus with the USA (BBC News 2016 ). Promoting an “America First” foreign policy agenda marked by US nationalism, protectionism, and unilateralism, and appealing simultaneously to large corporations (through tax cuts) and the US manufacturing and agricultural sectors (through shoring up jobs), he vowed to take a hard line on China in response to its reported currency devaluation, export subsidies, and theft of US intellectual property (Long 2016 ; Daniels 2016 ).

As president, Trump oversaw the establishment of economic policies that launched a trade war, placing tariffs and nontariff restrictions on Chinese imports. In early 2018, his administration imposed tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines (Lynch 2018 ) and later on steel and aluminum (Donnan 2018 ). Although the tariffs applied to imports from many countries, Chinese goods were seemingly the primary target. In retaliation, China imposed tariffs on an array of products from the USA. From July to December 2018, the tariff war escalated in a tit-for-tat fashion. After fragile progress of negotiations in early 2019, the Trump administration raised tariffs from 10 to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in summer 2019 (Bryan 2019 ). China retaliated with its own tariffs. In August 2019, China suspended the purchase of new US agricultural products, and the U.S. Treasury Department declared China a “currency manipulator” (U.S. Department of the Treasury 2019 ). The two countries made progress in repairing trade relations in fall 2019 and agreed to a trade deal in January 2020. However, despite the deal, in which China promised to import more US agricultural goods, it has not met its purchasing targets, especially in the wake of COVID-19 (Bermingham 2020 ).

China’s decreased importation of agricultural products from the USA has harmed US farmers. These products include soybeans, grain sorghum, pork, cotton, and cattle hides. Although China purposefully targeted the US agricultural base in the hope that farmers would pressure the Trump administration (Li et al. 2018 ), farmers continued to support the president. Based on surveys of corn and soybean farmers in 2018, Zhang, Rodriguez, and Qu argue that three factors account for their support (Zhang et al. 2019 ): First, the Trump administration has given billions in assistance to offset profit losses. Second, farmers believe that decline in profits in the short term will lead to better gains in the long term. Third, China has been inconsistent over time in its purchases of agricultural goods, according to farmers. Thus, despite Chinese efforts and some economic setbacks, farmers could continue to support the president.

The Trump administration has also attempted to thwart Chinese theft of intellectual property and espionage. In May 2019, it banned US companies from working with Huawei, a large Chinese multinational telecommunications and electronics company, over concerns it was stealing intellectual property and spying on companies and the government (Paletta et al. 2019 ). A month later, it targeted five supercomputing companies—Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology, Higon, Sugon, and the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology—over fears they were using their technology for military purposes (Leonard and Donnan 2019 ). In June 2020, President Trump proposed visa restrictions on Chinese students and scholars associated with China’s “military-civil fusion strategy” in the belief that the Chinese government used them to acquire intellectual property illegally from the USA (Redden 2020 ). In late July 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Chinese students who had not disclosed they had connections with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) when applying for admissions and student employment positions at various US universities. Chen, Chen, and Dondeti contend that “the trade war is not, in fact, about trade but about technological dominance, and that both sides might fall into a ‘Thucydides’s Trap,’ the pattern of large-scale conflict when a rising power challenges a dominant one” (Chen et al. 2020 ).

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, President Trump referred to the disaster as the “Chinese virus” (Rogers et al. 2020 ) and later, at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as “Kung Flu.” He said that the US government is determining if the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He has also accused the World Health Organization (WHO) of acting like the “public relations agency for China” and has withdrawn US funding from the institution (Al Jazeera 2020 ).

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton accused him of asking President Xi Jinping for domestic support in his bid for reelection (Bolton 2020 ). In one example, Bolton argued that Trump pressured China to purchase large amounts of soybeans to boost farmers’ support as the presidential election neared. Indeed, the president has had a difficult balance to achieve: remaining politically and rhetorically tough on China for failing to keep many of its trade promises and for cracking down on Hong Kong, while encouraging a market rebound before the election, itself partly contingent on the progress of US–China trade relations. Meanwhile, his credibility and trustworthiness seem to fluctuate in accordance with this inconsistent behavior.

From the Chinese perspective, the trade war has come as a surprise. In earlier administrations, and especially since China’s entry into the WTO in 2000, trade relations had been amicable and permissive. Chinese were thus shocked at President Trump’s unconventional approach to negotiations by threatening to increase tariffs on Chinese goods and to do so swiftly. Chinese leaders interpreted this as bullying or baling in Mandarin (“ba” meaning a “tyrant,” and “ling” meaning “insulting”). “Face” or mianzi is an essential virtue in traditional Chinese culture, and Trump’s coercive and bullying approach awakened memories of the “100 years of humiliation,” when foreign powers transgressed Chinese sovereignty. For many, the chief culprit became the USA. However, the Chinese state media employed a moderate approach in covering the trade conflict, criticizing the Trump administration for its protectionist policies instead of blaming the USA as a whole for economic aggression (Zeng and Sparks 2020 ).

Chinese commentators on the growing trade hostilities took different stances. Hu Xijin and Jin Canrong, both with large bases of support, voiced incendiary economic nationalist memes. Moderate opinion leaders, such as Yao Yang (a professor at Beijing University), called for a rational and cooperative approach in the management of US–China trade disputes (Yao 2019 ). Spokespersons for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs occasionally used tit-for-tat discourse as the conflict unfolded, which foreign audiences probably thought was undiplomatic. Ironically, economic nationalists welcomed this type of rhetoric that targeted a domestic audience. However, it was subject to misperception by foreign actors (Wang and McNeil 2019 ). The Chinese Ministry of Commerce is less visible to the Chinese public than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is, and it is largely free from the pressure of Chinese nationalism. During the trade negotiations, it played a constructive role as the economic and commercial expertise while its officers built confidence across the negotiating table.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, first in China and then in Europe, the USA, and elsewhere, made bilateral trade negotiations more complicated. Controversies outside the trade conflict—for example tensions in the South China Sea, the Chinese national government’s promulgation of national security articles in Hong Kong, US–China disputes concerning the WHO, and the like—added fuel to the flames of nationalism. Upon the rapid deterioration of political and security relations between the two countries, first Foreign Minister and Chinese Community Party (CCP) Political Bureau member Wang Yi, and then Yang Jiechi (also a CCP Political Bureau member), delivered speeches dismissing talk of US–China disengagement. Yang also visited the USA and met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to ease tensions. Speeches of Chinese leaders expressed a willingness to cooperate and compromise with their US counterparts, and they also served to bridle disorderly domestic nationalist impulses.

3 Nationalism: A Review of the Literature

In this section, we review concepts and literature related to nationalism to develop a foundation to analyze the drivers of the US–China trade war. These concepts include nationalism, state nationalism, economic nationalism, and American exceptionalism. Elites have long employed nationalist ideas to differentiate from others, and at times scapegoated and blamed these differentiated others, to achieve their strategic objectives.

Nationalism is a devotion to the nation and its people, identity, and culture. It stems from a national consciousness and prioritization that is in opposition to or comes at the expense of other nations. Often, social movements spring from nationalist convictions and aim to protect and promote the nation. Gellner ( 1983 ) argues that the principal goal of nationalism is to achieve the congruence of the national and political units. Infrequently do the boundaries of nations and states completely align, however, and movements to build nation-states often fail. Civic nationalism is a movement to advance the political community, while ethnic nationalism aims to advance the political, economic, and cultural interests of the ethnic group. Smith argues that nationalism is “an ideological movement to attain and maintain autonomy, unity, and identity on behalf of a population, some of whose members believe it to constitute an actual or potential ‘nation’” (Smith 2009 , 61).

State nationalism is a form of civic nationalism that attempts to transform the sovereign state to a nation, what can be called the “state-nation.” State nationalists contribute to this agenda by othering and marginalizing both internal and external actors. To build the state-nation, leaders and their followers scapegoat ethnic and racial minorities, immigrants, and political and cultural challengers within the state, while at times paradoxically embracing some of these ethnic and political “others” if they support the nation building project. State nationalists blame global forces, international institutions, and other countries and peoples for their challenges, revisioning them as threats to the state’s advancement of their interests and to state expansionism. Leaders and followers in the state-nation project have a complex and mutually reinforcing alliance. Leaders reward their constituents with rhetorical and material benefits in exchange for their support to exact a domestic and foreign policy agenda to move the state to a state-nation. This alliance is often tenuous: Leaders’ failure to deliver these rewards could weaken constituent support. State nationalism ranges from benign patriotism on the one end of the spectrum to violent fascism on the other.

One form of state nationalism is state economic nationalism (or mercantilism). Economic nationalism is an ideology that prioritizes the state’s economy over all others. Economies elevate state security and military power according to the ideology. Economic wealth is seen in realist and zero-sum ways. A leading international relations realist, and scholar of economic nationalism, Gilpin ( 1987 , 31) writes, “Its central idea is that economic activities are and should be subordinate to the goal of state-building and the interests of the state.” He further argues, it “recognizes the anarchic nature of international affairs, the primacy of the state and its interests in international affairs, and the importance of power in interstate relations” (Gilpin 2001 , 14). Contrasting economic liberalism, it opposes globalization and free trade and what is deemed as their destructive forces. Instead, economic nationalists aim to safeguard and control their own economies through protectionist measures like tariffs, quotas, and excessive regulations. Economic nationalism aims for economy diversification, while economic liberalism aims for specialization. Often, industrialization processes and the manufacturing and agricultural sectors are prioritized in the economic nationalist perspective. Economic nationalists routinely scapegoat others for economic losses. Such others include economic liberals and other countries. (A racialized version also blames immigrants and ethnic minorities.) China’s version of economic nationalism has been state corporatism, in which the government intervenes heavily in the market and owns or partially owns many corporations.

Although nationalist movements are pervasive around the world, nationalism in the USA holds a distinctive place in world history. A young state but old democracy, the USA is often characterized by its “exceptional” status—a label first applied by de Tocqueville ( 1838 ). As old as the country itself, American exceptionalism is rooted in the American Revolution and U.S. Constitution. According to Lipset ( 1996 ), Americans are committed to a common set of values: individualism, anti-statism, populism, and egalitarianism. As the “first new nation” (Lipset 1963 ), other states are not born out of the same suite of ideals. Based on a conviction that the USA is not only exceptional but superior, the USA believes it has a special mission to transform the world, which has justified international interventionism and democracy promotion since World War I. Inherent in American exceptionalism is a recognition of how the USA differs from other countries—both enemies and allies.

As we show in the next sections, the Trump administration has both galvanized and capitalized on domestic economic frustrations to perpetuate a state nationalist project to secure support for its domestic and foreign policy goals. In the international sphere, this project has targeted primarily China. Meanwhile, China’s recent economic and political rise is also driven by nationalism and an antagonism toward the USA. Although nationalism in each country contributes to the trade war, the roots and character of these nationalisms differ.

4 Expressions of Nationalism in the USA and China

4.1 nationalism in the usa and the othering of china.

Nationalism in the USA has contributed to the othering of China and the ongoing trade war. In this section, we consider three expressions of US nationalism: energy independence, revival of manufacturing, and internal and external xenophobia and then assess how each contributes to the trade conflict. The Trump administration’s push to become more energy independent, decrease the country’s reliance on foreign resources, and protect manufacturing jobs has led to the resurgence of economic protectionism. Veiled in xenophobic rhetoric, China has been made a target in this context in an attempt to increase domestic support.

4.1.1 The Push for Energy Independence

The Trump administration has striven for energy independence. It has aggressively pursued fossil fuels and minerals development in the country, with critical financial and political support early in the administration (2017–2018) and rollback of environmental laws and rules considered obstacles to energy independence and economic development before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly after his election to the presidency in 2016, Trump promised a new era of “energy dominance,” a term he coined, perhaps to imply that there would be no obstacles to increasing production of conventional and tight oil and gas, making coal “king” again for electricity generation, and expanding nuclear energy and hydropower (Council on Foreign Relations 2017 ). This was a much more aggressive agenda than that of previous Republican presidents, and it responded to the interests of large oil companies, allied interests (e.g., oil field service firms), and constituent groups such as older Caucasian voters, the lower middle class, and less educated workers.

Having promised during his presidential campaign that he would end the “war on American energy,” Trump, three years into his presidency, claimed that the USA had attained energy dominance. As the economic recession and COVID-19 pandemic spread in the USA, the Trump administration went to great lengths to further the objectives of the fossil fuel industry. In forming a task force called the “Great American Economic Revival” of industry groups to “reopen” the economy, he appointed nine executives from oil and gas corporations, two from the utility sector, one from oil mining, but no one from renewable industries. Then, in early 2020 when oil and gas prices decreased, Trump played a broker role seeking a reduction in global oil production from Saudi Arabia and Russia. The president tweeted, “We will never let the great Oil & Gas Industry down … I have instructed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Treasury to formulate a plan … so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future” (Dillon 2020 ). He sought to reduce the global oil glut and ease pressure on US oil and gas, reserve prices for which were briefly negative.

When administration plans to purchase millions of barrels of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) conflicted with Congress, the U.S. Department of Energy leased space providing aid to the industry (Lee and Clark 2020 ). The U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors increased liquidity in the economy, and then the president and Congress offered the largest stimulus program since the Great Depression (by mid-2020, amounting to nearly $5 trillion). Hundreds of billions in loans—much of which did not need to be repaid—went to businesses harmed by the pandemic, including energy companies (Cahlink and Koss 2020 ).

Republicans, and industries such as tobacco, oil and gas, coal, and chemicals, have long advocated for revision of federal agency, especially EPA, rulemaking. The Trump administration placed regulatory reform high on its agenda and planned an unprecedented rollback of environmental regulations, but the reform process was interrupted by the transition in power as Democrats gained control of the House after the 2018 midterm elections and then the 2019 impeachment proceedings. Regulatory reform gained urgency for the upper echelons of the administration in 2019, especially as energy prices fell and the stock market failed.

The Trump administration’s targets of regulatory reform have long been icons of the US environmental movement: the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act, as well as Waters of the US (WOTUS) regulations. Critics viewed these regulations as impeding energy and other apparently hazardous proposed developments. Too, regulatory reforms limited the application of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections of migratory routes and curbed the length of public comment periods for responding to proposed Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) reviews. Altogether these rollbacks challenged the environmental law and regulatory system established in a generation, although environmental groups challenged all reforms in court (see, for example, Farah and Hijazi 2020 ).

The Trump administration also sought to expand access to federal lands for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and mining of strategic minerals such as rare earth elements (see Hao and Liu 2011 ). Most remaining US public lands are in the West, and since the Sagebrush Rebellion of 1982, elected federal and state officials in western states have resisted “federal overreach.” Thus, the administration’s efforts garnered praise, while environmentalists and a few other interests (e.g., cattle ranchers, fisheries) were in opposition. Moreover, lands once reserved from development of rare, precious, and threatened species, such as the western sage grouse, were opened as well. By mid-2020, the USA produced 95 percent of the fossil fuels it consumed.

Energy independence is a subset of economic nationalism. The Trump administration aims to decrease its reliance on other states for fossil fuels (e.g., oil, gas, and coal) and use US resources to provide power to factories, businesses, and residences. Energy independence increases national power in competition with global rivals (e.g., Russia) that are self-sufficient in fossil fuels. It increases national economic development and wealth, as few expensive resources need to be imported. And it increases diplomatic flexibility, as preferred outcomes (e.g., support for Israel) are not constrained by resource dependence. Fossil fuel dominance also protects and rewards large oil and gas corporations that have bankrolled Republican leaders including President Trump, and it ensures continued employment for hundreds of thousands of oil/gas/coal field workers and sustenance of communities in which they live. This expression of nationalism is linked directly to trade protectionism and thus the US–China trade war.

4.1.2 The Revival of Manufacturing

The decline of US manufacturing was an issue in the 1980s, and the circumstances regarding manufacturing enterprises have worsened since then (Pierce and Schott 2016 ). In the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump called for a renaissance of manufacturing. As the economic downturn set in, and then the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, the focus became primarily the automobile industry and the global supply chain that undergirded it.

The US automobile business was once dominated by the “Big 3”—General Motors (GM), Chrysler, and Ford. However, the Detroit auto industry’s continued production of high fuel consumption vehicles, when oil shocks pushed gas prices skyward, created openings for inexpensive, fuel-efficient foreign automobiles. To cultivate political support, increasingly foreign manufacturers opened plants in the USA. Notwithstanding attempts by some manufacturers to limit foreign sourcing of auto parts, the supply chain for vehicles became more global than national. The Detroit auto industry lost considerable political support when GM and Chrysler, having declared bankruptcy, gained bailouts of $64 billion from the federal government in 2009, as corporate executives flew by Lear jets to Washington, DC for hearings (Lassa 2011 ).

Given their global linkages, US multinationals were at odds with President Trump’s rhetoric. For example, in a cost-cutting action GM announced it would close five factories and lay off 14,000 workers in North America. In response, the president tweeted that he was considering ending electric vehicle (EV) subsidies: “General Motors made a big China bet… when they built plants there … don’t think this bet is going to pay off. I am here to protect America’s Workers!” (Joselow 2018 ).

As President Trump began his reelection campaign in 2019, he claimed, “Many, many plants are now under construction in Michigan and Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida. They hadn’t built one in decades and now they’re all over the place.” Although little new plant construction occurred under the Trump administration (Robertson 2019 ), the industry had become compliant with the president. As auto sales fell, and the COVID-19 crisis erupted in early 2020, Trump administration agencies allowed exemptions to warehouse and factory safety restrictions so that workers would not lose their jobs. When in March 2020 US car sales seemed likely to drop more than 40%, and US factories closed, the industry received loan guarantees, tax deductions for employees’ paid leave, and deferred corporate tax payments. The president also used the emergency provisions of the Defense Production Act to configure factories of GM, Ford, and Tesla to produce ventilators and other medical supplies (Joselow 2020 ).

Through action on new fuel efficiency standards, the Trump administration made its strongest efforts to revive the auto industry. The trend since 1974 had been to reduce the amount of gasoline or diesel fuel consumed by cars and light trucks through raising standards of miles-per-gallon. Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration proposed a rollback of Obama administration targets which would have the effect of increasing US greenhouse gas emissions, while reducing the prices of cars and trucks. The auto industry was divided about the proposal. The catalyst was the Koch brothers and their conservative network, but most environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were opposed. A New York Times investigation contended that the motivation behind the campaign to lower fuel efficiency standards was the surplus of fossil fuels in the USA and the need to increase demand for their products (and fossil fuel dominance) (Tabuchi 2018 ). This change, along with historically low gas prices, gave US automakers strong incentives to produce more big “dirty” cars (Ferris 2020 ).

Manufacturing nationalism is another form of economic nationalism. Although it increases consumer costs, as US labor and most material costs are higher than those in Mexico and other developing nations, reversing the hollowing out of US corporations avoids the flight of US jobs to Mexico (through the North American Free Trade Act) and emerging economies (through the World Trade Organization). It increases national wealth and power by spurring innovation and technology, which lead to productivity growth. Increasing exports and reducing imports improves economic health by reducing reliance on other states. Too, reduction in balance of payments deficits makes the USA more competitive vis-à-vis its global rivals, especially China. New manufacturing enterprises add hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economies of depressed regions and states and electoral success to national leaders. This form of economic nationalism inspires protectionism and has contributed to the US–China trade war.

4.1.3 Internal and External Xenophobia

Xenophobia in the USA can be internal or external. The internal, or inward, dimension refers to actions and events within the country and involves the scapegoating of persons or groups along racial, ethnic, religious, or gender lines. The external, or outward, dimension refers to the racialized and hostile treatment of other countries. For example, in the George W. Bush administration, an “axis of evil” (North Korea, Iran, and Iraq) preoccupied US policymakers. In the Trump administration, the fixation has been on Mexico and China. Political elites use both forms of xenophobia in an attempt to garner domestic support.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump lambasted previous administrations for failing to enforce border security and stop drug smugglers and other criminal elements from entry into the USA. The most potent message of his campaign was to “build a wall,” and this appealed strongly to Caucasians (and even some Latinos) in his base. During the first two years of his administration, construction of new sections to the already existing wall was a regular story on the public agenda. Most dramatic was conflict between the executive and the House of Representatives when the latter body, under Democratic control after the 2018 midterm election, refused to appropriate funds to pay for wall construction. The ensuing government shutdown was the longest in US history. The administration did stop the flow of immigrants and began the return of some asylum seekers, but US law made instant resolution impossible.

Republican leaders focused on the “flood” of illegal immigrants, most from Central America transiting through Mexico to cross the US border. The numbers had escalated since the previous immigration reform legislation, totaling at least 11 million. In addition to their lack of legal status, illegal immigrants, according to the critics, used US public services (schools, hospitals, and reduced transportation and housing fares) at taxpayers’ considerable expense and took jobs from US citizens. Supporters of legalizing immigrants’ status offered evidence that immigrants on balance contributed toward the services they received and in most cases worked in jobs (e.g., farm labor, domestic cleaning, and health care) that most Americans did not desire.

Economic and political conflicts with China changed the dynamics of xenophobia in the USA. As mentioned, conflicts over trade rules and policies grew during the second and third year of the Trump presidency, and relations worsened greatly when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US homeland. President Trump and several conservative pundits accused China of genetic manipulations in Wuhan laboratories, causing outbreak of the virus and then failing to disclose it, a pattern repeating the Chinese regime’s actions in the 2002–2003 SARS epidemic. Then, US leaders accused China of infiltrating US laboratories, research institutes, and universities; stealing intellectual property; and hacking US computer systems. Several Chinese students who were apprehended had worked for the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

By mid-year 2020, US–China relations had become the worst since 1972. In addition to trade sanctions, risky military encounters (e.g., Chinese ships in the US continental shelf), the cessation of nearly all flights into the USA from China (and most of those from the USA to China), and the closure of the Houston consulate exacerbated relations. The US labeled Huawei Technologies Co. and its telecom companion ZTE as a national security threat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the relationship between the two nations should be based on the principle of “distrust and verify” and went on to say that the diplomatic opening of China by President Nixon in 1972 had undermined US interests (Wang and Myers 2020 ).

Both political and economic dimensions of nationalism stimulated xenophobic responses within the USA and in its international behavior. The political malaise was the expression of endless wars fought by the USA without clear victory or just compensation for its contributions. Economic discontent was the result of several decades of globalization that left large numbers of citizens behind (e.g., less educated, laid-off manufacturing workers). Political leaders and particularly Donald Trump exploited this dissatisfaction and its victims and found targets to blame: foreigners (e.g., Central Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, Africans) and Democrats (who supported “illegal” immigrants and were the elites of the “deep state” who grew rich from globalization). Scapegoating of these groups relieved emotional stress of those who believed they had been forgotten. Once mobilized, leaders then directed the anger of the “forgotten” to others, and the states appearing to represent them, such as China. This strategy has become a dominant feature of President Trump’s reelection campaign.

4.2 Nationalism in China and the Othering of the USA

Although China’s history as a civilization extends many thousands of years into the past, its modern identity as a nation dates to the nineteenth century, and it is expressed in four forms: economic, ethnic, cultural and political. Nationalist sentiments in China, as in the USA, have contributed to the trade war. From a long-felt perspective of being persecuted, and with a desire to participate fully in global affairs and exert leadership over some issue-areas, China has rebuffed US demands and contributed to the trade war.

4.2.1 Historical Victimization

An ancient source of Chinese nationalism is its long history as a civilization. China prides itself on the longevity of the Chinese language and culture and the ancient belief that China was the central power of the world. Chinese leaders are keen to create state nationalism and unity in light of the multiethnic composition of the population. Chinese nationality formally includes all of the state’s official 56 ethnic groups. Although more than 90% of the people are Han Chinese, leaders state that cultural inclusiveness is an important value (Gao and Zhu 2010 ), despite the reality. China celebrates an elaborate tribute system, brought up to the present in the Belt and Road Initiative. It also has a global diaspora, which connects mainland China to hundreds of thousands of Chinese communities throughout the world.

Most Western researchers, including ethnic Chinese researchers in the West, emphasize China’s memory of humiliation from foreign invasion, particularly the “100 years of humiliation” from the Opium War to the end of World War II and past grievances at the hands of foreign enemies. From this follows the memory of identity as a victimized people, who should “never forget national humiliation” (Wang 2012 ; Zhao 2014 ). Western scholars’ research in other contexts has suggested that nationalism is one of several factors driving public support for aggressive external policies. Some see a rise in aggressive nationalist rhetoric from both official and popular sources (see, among others, Whiting 1995 ). In the 1990s, the media provided greater opportunity and incentives for grassroots nationalist expressions (He 2007 ). They featured angry and sometimes violent protests following international incidents involving the USA and Japan (Gries 2001 ). This has led several Western observers to characterize Chinese nationalism as irredentist, insecure, and virulently anti-foreign (Whiting 1995 ), and this played a role in the increase of regional and bilateral tensions (Cotillon 2017 ; Yahuda 2013 ). On the other hand, some Chinese opinion leaders believe China has been subject to provocation analogous to that of Germany and Japan before World War II. Nationalist commentators, such as Hu Xijin (chief editor of Global Times ), Jin Canrong (professor at Renmin Universitiy), Hu An’gang (professor at Tsinghua University), and Kong Lingdong (professor at Beijing University), appear to subscribe to radical nationalist beliefs and have large Internet followings. In either case, a nationalism centered on a long-felt sense of persecution has contributed to the ongoing trade war. China’s history of being othered has created a “we” and “they” mentality and an insecurity that four decades of economic growth cannot easily remedy.

4.2.2 Economic Reforms and Internationalism

Modern Chinese economic reform emerged at the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911–1912 and the rise of the Republic of China, notwithstanding political turmoil until the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Private entrepreneurship, which had long been suppressed under imperial rules, thrived, as evidenced in the slogan, “entrepreneurship saves China” ( shiye jiuguo ). After three decades of Marxist and Maoist rule, China’s reforms and Open Door policies were adopted upon Deng Xiaoping’s return to power in 1978. More recently, China has strategized to invest ambitiously in locations all around the world, from Africa to the Arctic, and trade with a host of partners, all supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, a strategy to develop roads, railways, and ports in several countries around the globe.

Economic reforms established state capitalism as a system to create wealth and power in China. State-owned enterprises remained pillars of the economy, in sectors of national security importance such as transportation, energy, natural resource extraction and production, electricity, and several types of manufacturing. China’s doors were opened to multinational corporations and importation of their technology and capital. China’s integration into the global economy brought great pride in the Chinese nation as it became the world’s premier production center. Chinese competitiveness was essential for reduction of poverty and the rise of a middle class, but this came at the cost of national independence—as noted in xenophobic responses associated with both cultural and ethnic nationalism and directed at groups like the Uyghers, Tibetans, and Taiwanese.

China has been able to provide elementary school education to nearly all youth. Middle school education is not yet universal, and access to high school and college is limited to those passing entrance examinations. Still, young people today are much more likely to be knowledgeable about the global community than they were fifty years ago. The increase in educational opportunity facilitates independent and critical thought about the linkage of China’s national interest and economic interdependence (Qin and Zhu 2005 ). Further, scholars generally agree that economic reforms increasing competitiveness and promoting global integration have been beneficial to China’s national interest (Chen 2000 ; Brien and He 2002 ). Therefore, as the Trump administration sought to sever economic and cultural ties with China, the majority of Chinese, including elites, objected. They wanted to prevent a trend leading to disengagement from global affairs. When Chinese considered the degree to which China had advanced as a consequence of ties with the outside world and particularly the USA, they harnessed nationalist instincts in the developing trade war.

4.2.3 Leadership in the International Community

The Chinese Communist Party was founded on Marxism, and during the first three decades of the PRC the regime followed the Soviet model of a state-owned and managed economy. During that period, ideological disputes within the fabric of Marxism and Maoism prompted the Great Leap Forward to surpass the USA and UK, followed by the Cultural Revolution which attempted to purge capitalist elements from society. Less than two decades later, leaders staged a “patriotic education campaign,” designed to shore up support for the CCP in the wake of the student movement of 1989 and the setback to Marxism as represented in the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Western scholars’ research on Chinese nationalism focuses on public attitudes and foreign policy making (Weiss 2014 ; Sinkkonen 2013 ). For Chinese leaders, the politics of nationalism are more complicated and have both domestic and foreign targets. President Xi Jinping envisions China and the global community as sharing a common destiny and expects China to play a positive and active leadership role in global governance. In Xi’s vision of the Chinese dream, China will exercise responsibility in producing more public goods, including harmonious interactions between humans and nature (Bhattacharya 2019 ). Thus, Xi is under pressure to end the trade war and reassert China’s growing leadership role in international relations.

This vision of China’s role in global governance, along with China’s visible benefits from participation in the global economic system, most notably with the USA, are key factors balancing against the bitter feelings Chinese harbor toward the Trump administration for disrespectful treatment during the course of trade negotiations. China and the USA have different political and ideological belief systems. China is an outsider to the global security network, which features a US-led alliance network. These differences will be difficult to eliminate in the short term, and for this reason trade relations increasingly appear risky. When these factors become dormant, trade issues will be easier to resolve. Of course, increasing global economic benefits would ease trade hostilities, but the slowdown in global growth due to the COVID-19 pandemic limits the ability of both China and the USA to soften in their trade positions. A number of uncertainties remain for both countries regarding the role nationalism plays in trade relationships. In the USA, domestic politics are polarized, and there are problems in economic recovery. In China, there are concerns in the process of domestic political development as to whether the Open Door and economic reform policies should continue. Too, there is the question of China’s identity as a responsible global actor. Thus, China counteracts US aggression in the trade war, not only to protect its economic interests but also to assert power to international audiences.

5 Conclusion

Although the Trump administration initiated the trade war, China has retaliated with tit-for-tat measures and exerted a great deal of power to protect its economic and political interests and its burgeoning leadership role in global affairs. Both sides’ participation in the conflict rests on several nationalist factors. In the USA, President Trump has pushed to wean the country off foreign sources of oil and other natural resources and has promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to the Rust Belt and other areas. Both of these agenda items have led to economic nationalist and protectionist steps and to the weakening of the US–China trade relationship. In this context, Trump and other high-level administrators have used xenophobic rhetoric in an attempt to blame China for US economic ills. The rhetoric ramped up at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (and in the year of a presidential election campaign). For the Trump administration, the pandemic was an opportunity to further blame China for domestic economic problems long in the making. Initially surprised at the high tariffs imposed on its goods, China has stood up to US pressure, in part owing to its identity of being historically marginalized and its desire to continue to grow economically and politically on the world stage.

What have been the effects of the US–China trade conflict? It has led to higher consumer prices, lower corporate profits, unstable markets, and slower economic growth (Norland 2020 ; Ungarino 2019 ; Lawder 2020 ). One analysis shows how President Trump’s tweets related to the trade conflict have adversely affected the stock market (Burggraf et al. 2019 ). Account deficits and manufacturing decline in the USA are the result of low savings, high labor costs, and rising service sectors rather than imports from China (Sheng et al. 2019 ). Of greater alarm, the trade war has exacerbated account deficits and eroded the USA’s comparative advantage in the technological sector and human capital by pressuring China to invest in high technology industries (Sheng et al. 2019 ). Moreover, deficit reductions have not promoted economic growth (Moosa 2020 ), and the trade deficit reduction with China will likely lead to deficits with other countries (Lai 2019 ). It appears that the USA will not reduce its trade deficit with China, and even if it could do so, the USA will not achieve strong economic progress but instead develop deficits with other countries.

The Trump administration, as long as it is in power, will likely not let up in its pressure toward China. Its othering of China continues to be relevant as long as the USA continues to maintain unsatisfactory wages and societal interruptions owing to the pandemic. Although the USA has legitimate reasons for pressuring China, the country is also a convenient target for domestic grievances. Although China would prefer to return to the status quo, it will resist and counterattack US actions to both prevent economic decline and showcase power to domestic and foreign audiences.

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Boylan, B.M., McBeath, J. & Wang, B. US–China Relations: Nationalism, the Trade War, and COVID-19. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 14 , 23–40 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-020-00302-6

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How does national confidence inform US-China relations?

Subscribe to the china bulletin, ryan hass ryan hass director - john l. thornton china center , senior fellow - foreign policy , center for asia policy studies , john l. thornton china center , chen-fu and cecilia yen koo chair in taiwan studies.

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Executive summary

There has been a proliferation of forecasts in recent years for when the United States and China may enter conflict. For some, these forecasting exercises have been driven by concerns about an erosion of stability in the Taiwan Strait. For others, they have been a function of a shrinking gap in national power between the United States and China. Yet others have speculated that China may be peaking in national power and may sense a fleeting moment to secure its objectives, by force if necessary, before it begins its descent.

This paper offers a different frame for evaluating the U.S.-China relationship. Based on a review of the relationship over the past 75 years, this paper argues that when both countries feel secure and optimistic about their futures, the relationship generally functions most productively. When one country is confident in its national performance but the other is not, the relationship is capable of mudding through. And when both countries simultaneously feel pessimistic about their national condition, as is the case now, the relationship is most prone to sharp downturns. Domestic factors alone do not dictate the trajectory of relations. They do, however, play a larger role in influencing the relationship than otherwise has been observed in much recent public commentary.

This model for evaluating the relationship yields several policy-relevant conclusions. It suggests the relationship is dynamic and responsive to developments in both countries, as opposed to being captive to historical forces leading immutably toward conflict. It highlights that the relationship has navigated frequent zigs and zags over the past decades and rarely travels a straight line for long. It also makes clear that there is not a market now for bold new thinking about managing the bilateral relationship. The current task for policymakers in Washington and Beijing is to navigate through the concurrent down cycles in both countries while keeping bilateral tensions below the threshold of conflict.

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Situating the present moment

The U.S.-China relationship is both strained and devoid of ambition. Conversations with officials from the U.S. and Chinese governments have yielded little optimism for potential improvements in bilateral relations in the foreseeable future. Policymakers in both countries appear to be primarily concerned with limiting the risks of escalation through 2024 and developing more durable means of managing competition over the longer term.

The current state of relations comes as no surprise; the bilateral relationship has traveled a negative trajectory from 2017-2023. Tensions relaxed modestly following the Woodside Summit between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping in November 2023. At that summit, both leaders reaffirmed the need for the United States and China to manage competition without resorting to conflict. Biden afforded Xi public dignity and respect and reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding policy on Taiwan, and in return, Xi showed responsiveness to America’s top concerns, including by agreeing to staunch the flow of fentanyl precursors from China, restore military-to-military communications, and launch a bilateral dialogue on governance of artificial intelligence technologies and their applications. These steps were laudable, even if they were largely tactical.

As important as these efforts were by both leaders to set a floor under the relationship, they did not alter the trajectory of relations. There are deeper undercurrents influencing bilateral relations that merit further examination, namely the domestic conditions inside both countries. These undercurrents presently are pushing both countries toward intensifying rivalry.

Explanations for the downturn in relations

Both Washington and Beijing have their own explanations for why the relationship has fallen into its current trough. As Jeff Bader, Patricia Kim, and I argued in 2022, Washington believes that Beijing has grown impatient and aggressive over the past decade of Xi’s rule. By trampling the rights of its citizens at home, militarizing efforts to assert control over contested territorial claims along its periphery, actively seeking to make the world compatible with its authoritarian vision of governance, and announcing its intentions to dominate next-generation technologies, many in Washington’s policy community believe Beijing has violated universal values and exposed its revisionist ambitions.

Other American experts go further, arguing that China’s goals for global leadership are incompatible with America’s longstanding role in the world. Still others assert that America and China are destined for conflict, either because of differences over Taiwan or as a function of shifts in relative power, the so-called Thucydides trap . Prominent American politicians, such as Representative Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), frame the contest in ideological terms, warning of the risks of America becoming “Xinjiang-lite” unless China’s global march to dominance is stopped.

China’s explanation for the downturn in relations focuses on U.S. anxiety over its relative loss of power to an ascendant China. Many Chinese analysts believe the United States is lashing out against China to seek to slow China’s rise and preserve Washington’s leadership position in the international system. According to this logic, U.S. efforts to focus attention on human rights concerns, highlight China’s domestic challenges, withhold critical technology, and isolate and contain China are driven by the strategic motive of weakening China and delegitimizing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

None of the popular narratives in either country capture the root causes for the intensifying competition. At their core, both countries believe their governance and economic models are best equipped to meet the 21st century’s challenges. Both believe they are natural leaders in Asia and on the world stage. Both countries are contending with rapid societal transformations, which are being exacerbated by the impacts of the fourth industrial revolution. And both countries are determined to limit vulnerabilities to the other while seeking to gain an edge in emerging technologies. This is all occurring while the United States and China remain unsatisfyingly locked into a relationship that is at once both competitive and interdependent. In other words, the United States and China are competing to demonstrate which governance, economic, and social system can deliver the best results in the 21st century.

This notion of competing governance and social systems goes a long way toward explaining the rivalrous nature of relations, but it does not explain why bilateral tensions have intensified and accelerated in recent years. To better understand this trend, one must also place the current moment in a historical context.

This paper introduces a new variable for understanding the rivalry’s rising intensity. It argues that the United States and China presently find themselves in a simultaneous cycle of insecurity and dissatisfaction with their national conditions. Like when U.S. and PRC national down cycles have coincided in the past, this simultaneity is serving as a propellant in both countries for framing the national contest for power and influence in dramatic and, to some, existential terms.

Reviewing past political cycles

For China under the CCP, anxiety about external threats—real or imagined—is a continuous feature of its governance system. Successive Chinese leaders since Mao Zedong have used external threats as rationales to rally greater unity and cohesion at home.

Mao was a master at using outside challenges to unite support behind him. In an interview in 1939, a decade before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao declared , “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.” He framed issues in zero-sum terms, fostering a political climate rife with suspicion, intrigue, and antagonism. Mao encouraged a mindset that CCP leaders must display loyalty to him and hang together lest they all hang apart.

After the founding of the PRC in 1949, Mao launched a series of campaigns to consolidate his personal control and neutralize enemies of his vision for the future of China. These included the campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries from 1950-1953, the Great Leap Forward from 1958-1962, and the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976. These campaigns were historic in their scale and brutality.

The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s final act. It generated societal upheaval, widespread purges, and ideological battles. Following Mao’s death in 1976, China entered a brief power struggle, culminating in Deng Xiaoping’s ascent.

Deng used Mao’s tactic of purges in his initial period as he consolidated power, but then shifted toward a more pragmatic governance path. Deng declared in 1978, “Independence does not mean shutting the door on the world, nor does self-reliance mean blind opposition to everything foreign.” In these and other gestures, Deng sought to move China away from devastating campaigns and instead introduce domestic reforms to distribute power, create orderly leadership transitions, carve out a larger role for the private sector, and allay external anxieties about China’s rise.

Deng’s tenure as leader did include cataclysms, none sharper than the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, 1989. In keeping with the CCP’s pattern of blaming outside forces for internal challenges, Beijing Mayor Chen Xitong framed the Tiananmen protests as part of a global capitalist scheme to undermine socialism in his report to the National People’s Congress. Chen alleged that Western powers and Chinese intellectuals had colluded with certain CCP members to incite “political turmoil.” (Chinese leaders recycled similar allegations several decades later to respond to widespread public protests in Hong Kong in 2014 and 2019-2020.) Paranoia infused the public explanation Deng and his leadership cohort used to justify the bloody crackdown on June 4 and their subsequent consolidation of political power.

During the period between Mao’s death in 1976 and Xi Jinping’s ascent to power in 2012, there were other crackdowns. Chinese citizens’ rights were systematically curtailed and public dissent of CCP decisions was dealt with harshly. There was widespread ethnic and religious persecution, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang. By and large, though, China experienced unprecedented progress during this period. More Chinese people were lifted out of poverty in these decades than any country had achieved in any previous period in human history. China’s economy boomed. Optimism prevailed among a wide cross section of Chinese society.

Xi was elevated to leader in 2012. In one of his early actions as leader, Xi launched an aggressive anti-corruption campaign to target “tigers and flies,” in other words, officials at all levels engaging in illicit activities. In the decade since, Xi has used the anti-corruption campaign as a vehicle for consolidating power and enforcing loyalty. The campaign has netted over 2.3 million officials , including serving and retired leaders at the pinnacle of the CCP’s power structure.

In 2013, the CCP published an internal document titled “Communique on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere.” This declaration, often referred to as Document Number Nine, warned against the dangers of adopting Western values and systems. It singled out concepts such as constitutional democracy, civil society, and freedom of the press as elements of a strategy by the United States and other Western actors to undermine the CCP’s leadership. In doing so, Xi and his team returned to the well-worn playbook of invoking fears of external threats to demand internal unity.

Even as Chinese leaders were launching a campaign to impose vigilance against alleged American and Western attempts to topple the CCP, the U.S.-China relationship remained relatively stable during 2012-2016. There were strains over the South China Sea, cyber-espionage, Taiwan, and other issues during this period, but there also was a sense of common purpose around climate issues, public health, and nonproliferation. The U.S.-China relationship did not reach an inflection point until 2017, or perhaps 2018.

This inflection point in the relationship resembled but did not match the comprehensiveness of the break in U.S.-China relations in the early 1950s, following the founding of the People’s Republic of China. And yet the shift in 2017 or 2018 was sharper than during other periods of Chinese turmoil, such as during the Tiananmen massacre and its aftermath. This begs the question, why have U.S.-China relations suffered sharp downturns during specific periods, but not during other moments of internal turmoil in one or both countries?

Why some political cycles generate bilateral turmoil

For some, the answer is tied up in the personalities of the American leaders involved in managing U.S.-China relations during these sensitive moments. In this telling , President George H.W. Bush and his deputies were overly solicitous of stable relations with the Chinese, and this orientation caused them to “let China’s leaders off the hook” for massacring protesting students near Tiananmen Square. Similarly, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama were naïve in hoping that China’s deepening integration into the global economy would create pressure for political change inside China.

While American leaders’ views—and their connections with their Chinese counterparts—certainly factor into how the relationship is managed, they alone do not provide explanatory value for why the relationship weathered certain shocks but not others. Rather, by analyzing upturns and downturns in U.S.-China relations over the past 80 years, the U.S.-China relationship appears most prone to sharp volatility when both countries simultaneously are experiencing cycles of insecurity and pessimism about their futures. When only one of the two parties enters a cycle of national instability, the relationship generally can weather turbulence without experiencing sharp deterioration in relations. The moments of non-linearity in the trajectory of relations occur when both countries simultaneously enter domestic political down cycles.

The two periods in the last 80 years when the United States and China simultaneously were in such down cycles were the early 1950s and the period since 2016. In the early 1950s, Mao was launching consecutive campaigns to keep his adversaries off-balance while he sought to consolidate power. Inside the United States, Senator Joseph McCarthy was advancing a paralyzing campaign to root out communist sympathizers in government and society. McCarthy warned that communists had infiltrated the government to launch “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.” McCarthy vowed to tear apart government and society until every communist was rooted out.

McCarthy symbolized a sense of malaise that had pervaded the United States in the wake of World War II. Even though the United States had triumphed in the war, it struggled to gain confidence that it would win the peace. The Soviets appeared on the march in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and Americans were fearful of their inability to halt Moscow’s advances.

Thus, both the United States and China found themselves simultaneously in a period of intense domestic turmoil in the early postwar years. This turmoil was exacerbated by ideological divisions between both countries as the Cold War’s battle lines began to take shape. These forces placed strong downward pressure on a relationship that had not yet taken root following the CCP’s establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The result was a period of prolonged enmity and estrangement.

Both countries would remain sealed off from each other until Henry Kissinger’s groundbreaking visit in 1971. Even though China was convulsed by the Cultural Revolution and the United States was consumed by war in Vietnam at that time, leaders in both countries saw beyond their immediate domestic challenges. President Richard Nixon, Mao, Kissinger, and Premier Zhou Enlai realized their respective geostrategic positions vis-à-vis the Soviet Union would be advanced by coming together. Balance-of-power politics compelled the leaders to seize that strategic opportunity, even amid domestic turmoil. Nixon’s and Mao’s decision to seize the strategic initiative in that moment of simultaneous U.S. and Chinese down cycles served as the exception to the pattern that this piece highlights.

One of China’s next major domestic convulsions occurred in 1989 with the Tiananmen protests and subsequent massacre. These events occurred at the twilight of the Cold War. Even though it was not yet apparent at the time that the Berlin Wall would fall several months later, there nevertheless was a sense of optimism inside the United States that America was ascendant on the world stage. Many American commentators saw Japan’s economic ascent as America’s primary challenge. By and large, America saw itself as strong and strengthening, with a relatively calm domestic environment, while China was experiencing a societal shock. However, over the next decade, China experienced rapid economic growth and modernization, leading to China’s emergence as a global economic powerhouse and, for the most part, domestic stability.

America experienced its own shock on September 11, 2001. That day’s terrorist attacks triggered anxieties inside the United States that manifested in a dramatic expansion of domestic security, an increase in anti-Muslim racism, and the launching of two grinding wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. China at that time was largely stable and confident in its national trajectory. China’s president, Jiang Zemin, was among the first world leaders to reach out to President George W. Bush to offer condolences and support, saying that “the attacks have not only brought about a disaster to the American people, but also a challenge to the sincere desire for peace of the world people.”

America suffered another shock in 2008-09 with the global financial crisis. The crisis, which emanated from America’s financial and housing sectors, shook the American economy and depleted millions of Americans’ lifetime savings. American leaders reached out to their Chinese counterparts to propose that both countries coordinate to control the financial contagion. Chinese leaders saw such an approach as serving their own interests. They acted on America’s invitation to co-lead the global economic recovery. Beijing’s response highlighted China’s growing economic strength and confidence in its national capacity to lead on the world stage.

Xi’s ascent to power in 2012 and his subsequent launch of a national anti-corruption campaign coincided with Obama’s second term in office. Obama’s political image was forged by optimism about the future. He presented himself as a leader who would pull the United States out of the global financial crisis and propel the country forward, focusing on creating a more just and equitable union at home and bolstering American leadership abroad. He saw China as a formidable competitor that would play a growing role on the world stage in the 21st century. He did not view China as an existential threat to America and its way of life.

Donald Trump ushered in a major shift. He warned Americans that China was “raping” the United States by stealing jobs, and framed the competition between the United States and China as “the Chinese Communist Party … versus freedom-loving people everywhere.” At the same time, Trump also occasionally lavished praise upon Xi as a “strong leader” who could unite 1.4 billion people behind his vision for the future of China.

Although Trump’s rhetoric and posture on China vacillated considerably, the important point is that his term in office marked a return for America to one of its recurring cycles of self-doubt and outrage over injustices, real and perceived. Trump helped frame domestic disputes not as negotiable interests that could be reconciled through America’s political process, but rather as social conflicts that involve deeper values, fears, and hatreds. His tirades against China were an element of these efforts. Trump tapped into a sense of anger many Americans felt—about lost jobs, fading prospects for advancement, and failure to deliver a brighter future for the next generation. He urged his followers to use him as their vehicle for reclaiming power and control in America.

Biden has adopted a starkly different approach toward governance than his predecessor. He has returned America to its constitutional tenets and its normal political rhythms. Even so, political polarization in America remains sharp. For many in the country, political differences are not subject to resolution through compromise but instead are seen as a moral contest between light and darkness. And despite steady economic growth, about three-quarters of Americans at the end of 2023 believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. A majority of Americans believe their country is in decline. There is diminishing consensus inside America on what role it should play in the world, or whether America should pursue leadership on the world stage at all. Arguments in favor of greater nationalism and protectionism appear to be gaining purchase in national debates.

That the U.S.-China rivalry has continued to intensify throughout the Trump and Biden administrations supports the argument that factors beyond the personalities and preferences of individual leaders inform the trajectory of U.S.-China relations. Trump and Biden are different in many respects. One throughline of both of their presidencies, though, has been a sense of pessimism and loss of control among large portions of the American electorate about their country’s future.

As Richard Hofstadter demonstrated in his seminal essay , “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” America is prone to cyclical bouts of pessimism and fear that its way of life will be destroyed by outside forces. Previous periods of American anxiety about foreign interference have included widespread fears of the Illuminati in the late 1790s, the Freemasons in the 1820s, Catholics and European monarchs in the 1830s-1860s, and communists in the 1950s. Americans also have shown a stubborn pattern of anxiety about national decline. Previous bouts have included those occurring during Soviet expansionism in the early period of the Cold War; after Sputnik in 1957, the OPEC oil embargo in 1973, and the U.S. defeat in Vietnam in 1975; and in response to Japan’s economic surge in the 1980s.

While the scapegoats of this current bout of national anxiety are varied and include globalists, immigrants, and allies, China serves as an organizing feature of discourse. China and its leaders act as a foil that certain American leaders use to warn against the erosion of national character and the depletion of national competitiveness.

Meanwhile, China is navigating its own simultaneous period of malaise . Youth unemployment is north of 20 percent. Record numbers of Chinese citizens are leaving the country in search of freedom and opportunity abroad. China’s demographic profile is worsening. China’s housing market is in the doldrums and its stock market has lost over $6 trillion in market capitalization since its peak in 2021. Some of China’s most visible leaders, such as its defense and foreign minister, are disappearing without notice or explanation. While there are pockets of technological advancement in areas such as electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, and batteries, China’s overall economy is slowing and showing signs of diminishing dynamism.

To be fair, China’s current problems appear most pronounced when compared to its own past performance. The country is decelerating from annual economic growth of 7.7 percent in the decade prior to COVID-19 to forecasted growth of 3-4 percent for the remainder of this decade. On a relative basis, much of the world continues to envy China’s current growth rates. China also could make policy adjustments to boost growth. Even so, given Xi’s concentration of power, his abolishment of term limits, Beijing’s emphasis on state security, and its focus on building a state-directed economic growth model, there appears to be declining optimism in China that any policy course correction is on the horizon.

In other words, the United States and China are both dealing with significant, albeit different, domestic challenges at this current moment. America is undergoing a national self-examination of its internal character and its role in the world, while China is facing rising repression and slowing economic growth. Even so, the broader point is that when national pessimism coincides in both China and the United States, the confluence can serve as an accelerant of U.S.-China confrontation and an intensifier of rivalry. This current moment offers fresh evidence for such an observation.

Implications

This examination of how simultaneous bouts of insecurity and pessimism in the United States and China are impacting their bilateral relationship is intended more as a thought experiment than an empirical study. However, if this thought experiment holds explanatory power, it would lead to several implications for evaluating U.S.-China relations.

First, this thesis would lend credence to a mental framework that successive generations of American policymakers have passed down from the 1970s to the present: the relationship functions best when Washington and Beijing both feel secure and optimistic about the future, and the relationship is most turbulent when both countries feel insecure and pessimistic. This study would fill in several gaps between those two poles. For example, this survey reveals that both countries are capable of muddling through when only one of the two parties is navigating turbulence, such as was the case around the Tiananmen massacre, September 11, the global financial crisis, and the period from 2012-2016. Also, the two countries can overcome the effects of simultaneous down cycles when they both have leaders who are determined to focus on the strategic horizon instead of the immediate moment, such as was shown between Nixon and Mao in 1972.

Second, this thesis would support viewing the bilateral relationship as dynamic and responsive to developments in both countries, and not hostage to immutable historic forces or a function of their leaders’ personalities and preferences. In other words, the United States and China are not predestined to conflict based on past patterns between rising and established powers. The nature of bilateral relations also is not simply an extension of two leaders’ preferences and personalities. There are other factors involved, specifically both countries’ internal dynamics and their levels of confidence in their national directions.

Third, these findings would suggest that during periods of simultaneous tumult in both countries, which appears to be the case now, the focus for both should be on getting their own houses in order. At this current moment, there is no market for bold creativity about reimagining the bilateral relationship. Rather, the demand signal from both capitals is for sober thinking about guarding against downside risks and seizing limited opportunities for mutually self-interested coordination on common challenges, such as climate change, public health, and risk reduction in the employment of new and emerging technologies in national security.

Even as the current moment is not conducive to exuberant optimism, neither should it be susceptible to excessive fatalism. This survey of the relationship’s recent history highlights how the relationship rarely travels on a straight line for long. A cursory review of the past 75 years of U.S.-China relations reveals various zigs and zags, from the early years of enmity and estrangement following the PRC’s founding to the cautious opening between Nixon and Mao in 1972, to the guarded optimism surrounding the opening of diplomatic relations and then America’s deep disappointment following the Tiananmen massacre, to the shared project of integrating China into the global economy, followed by joint work to combat climate change, and finally to the current period of sharp and intensifying rivalry.

If past is prologue, there will be periods in the relationship when patience is needed while one or both countries work their way out of domestic down cycles. And then there are periods when both countries simultaneously feel secure and optimistic about their futures. These are the periods when there is openness to bold ideas for advancing bilateral relations, even amid irreconcilable differences over fundamental issues such as Taiwan, human rights, and the distribution of power in the international system. If this is the case, then the project for the moment is to manage through the current down cycle in relations while preparing for a future moment when there is more space for new thinking about the relationship.

These findings will feel unsatisfactory to many observers of the U.S.-China relationship in both countries. For example, Chinese nationalists will balk at the suggestion that factors beyond U.S. hostility to China’s rise are informing the current downturn in relations. Biden’s supporters will chafe at any assertion that Americans currently lack optimism in their country’s future. Human rights advocates and democracy promoters will argue that this framing insufficiently weighs ideological differences and the impacts of China’s rising repression at home and its efforts to export elements of its security practices abroad. National security experts will critique this model for underemphasizing the degree to which China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and along the Sino-Indian border have intensified the U.S.-China rivalry. Others will argue that external factors should be accorded greater consideration in any assessment of the U.S.-China relationship. In other words, the U.S.-China relationship does not operate in a vacuum and cannot be understood only by looking at factors within both countries.

I am sympathetic to many of these critiques. The purpose of this paper is not to elide these factors or minimize the fact that China has contributed disproportionately to the downturn in relations. Rather, it is to highlight the impact of domestic political cycles in the United States and China on the management of the bilateral relationship.

Several facts about the relationship are inescapable. The U.S.-China relationship is the most complex bilateral relationship in the world. It will have the greatest impact on the largest number of people in the world. U.S.-China competition is a structural feature of the international system. It is a relationship that defies single-factor explanations, including in this study.

Nevertheless, by focusing on the role of U.S. and Chinese domestic cycles on the relationship between both countries, this piece aims to illuminate a variable in the relationship that has been relatively under-explored amid recent enthusiasm around great power competition, ideological struggle for supremacy, and forecasting future conflict. There are exceptions, such as Evan Medeiros’s recent examination of the role of domestic politics on the relationship. This piece seeks to add to that inventory, helping to broaden understanding of how political cycles in both countries will influence the trajectory of relations between the world’s two largest powers in the 21st century.

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• > Sino-American Relations
• > Introduction: US-China Relations at a Historic Crossroad

Book contents

• Frontmatter
• Table of Contents
• Note on Transliteration
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: US-China Relations at a Historic Crossroad
• Part One Background and Lost Voices
• 1 From Admirer to Critic: Li Dazhao’s Changing Attitudes toward the United States
• 2 Legacy of the Exclusion Act and Chinese Americans’ Experience
• 3 Disillusioned Diplomacy: US Policy towards Wang Jingwei’s Reorganized National Government, 1938–1945
• Part Two Did America Lose China?
• 4 Lost Opportunity or Mission Impossible: A Historiographical Essay on the Marshall Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947
• 5 Negotiating from Strength: US-China Diplomatic Challenges at the Korean War Armistice Conference, 1951–1953
• 6 Mao Zedong and the Taiwan Strait Crises
• Part Three Rapprochement and Opportunities
• 7 Media and US-China Reconciliation
• 8 Sino-American Relations in the Wake of Tiananmen, 1989–1991
• 9 Jiang Zemin and the United States: Hiding Hatred and Biding Time for Revenge
• Part Four Did China Lose America?
• 10 China’s Belt-Road Strategy: Xinjiang’s Role in a System without America
• 11 The East and South China Seas in Sino-US Relations
• Conclusion: The Coming Cold War II?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2023

From Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 to Barack Obama’s presidency in 2008–2016, relations between China and the United States were largely cordial, despite a few aberrations, like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)’s bombardment of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the US-China Hainan plane collision incident in 2001. However, since 2018, US-China relations have deteriorated, and tensions have escalated due to trade, technology, and currency wars. In 2019, President Donald Trump signed bills supporting the Hong Kong protests and Taiwan, further exacerbating bilateral relations. As if tensions were not high enough, the sudden eruption of the Covid-19 pandemic in China and its spread to the US deepened the fissure between the two powers. In March 2019, China and the US fought tit-for-tat over journalists (Smith, 2020). In July, after China promulgated the Hong Kong Security Law, Trump ended Hong Kong’s special status. Diplomatic enmity reached a new high when both countries closed one of their consulates. On July 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after repeated attacks and lambasting by Chinese state media as the ‘Common Human Enemy’ announced that the engagement policy started by Nixon had failed. In another speech, Pompeo called China the biggest threat to the US (Shesgreen 2020). Like Pompeo, Trump floated the idea of ‘decoupling’ the Chinese and American economies, a far cry from his stance just a few years earlier.

In 2020, Beijing launched a new, aggressive diplomatic campaign against the US, described by Western media as ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy. On March 21, 2021, top Chinese diplomats cited the US’s own human rights problems when they denounced the United States, at high-level China-US talks in Alaska, as ‘not qualified’ to lecture China on human rights. Washington also saw a sharp increase in 2021 of hostile responses to the Taiwan question from Beijing. The increased hostility in those statements included warnings that ‘China will “take all necessary measures” to safeguard its sovereignty and security’ (Dai and Luqiu 2021).

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• By Xiaobing Li , Qiang Fang
• Edited by Xiaobing Li , Qiang Fang
• Book: Sino-American Relations
• Online publication: 14 March 2023
• Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048554775.002

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US-China Relations in the 21st Century

In international affairs and international politics, US-China relations are essential in global affairs and foreign policy. As emerging powers with increasing influence on world events and actions, China and America’s relations impact many aspects of contemporary society such as economy, finance, security, technology, and environment (Hass, 2020). Both countries are members of the United Nations Security Council and nuclear powers. They are two of the world’s largest economies. Therefore, the relationship between these two countries is significant and has been a focus of attention for many scholars, researchers, and journalists.

The United States and China have had a complicated history of their relations, beginning with trade in the 19th century. The first treaty between the two countries was signed in 1844 when the two sides agreed on several points regarding commerce. It set the stage for further treaties over the next few decades, including one that gave Christian missionaries the right to proselytize in China. During this time, a growing movement within the United States called for it to open its borders to Chinese immigrants. Many Americans saw Chinese workers as an inexpensive labor source and were eager to take advantage of their willingness to work for low wages. This early relationship would become troubled when the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, effectively preventing Chinese immigrants from entering the country.

China and America have had an on-off relationship since the Second World War ended in 1945 (Medeiros, 2019). At this point, China was a poor and underdeveloped country with very few ties to America or any other Western country. The new communist government of China supported the Soviet Union and its allies. By contrast, America was firmly opposed to communism and did not recognize the new government of China, so it never established formal diplomatic relations with it.

The two countries would not resume normal relations until after World War II when they began working together to rebuild postwar Europe. In 1971, President Nixon traveled to China and established diplomatic relations. It led to a period of rapprochement between the two sides, culminating in the Shanghai Communique, a joint statement issued by Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The communique laid out the basic principles of US-China relations, including recognizing each other’s sovereignty and the commitment to peaceful coexistence (Goldstein, 2020). It also acknowledged that the two countries had different ideologies but affirmed that they could still work together.

Since the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and China in 1979, US-China relations have been a critical focus of American foreign policy. The 1990s saw a shift in the dynamics of US-China relations as Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms began to take effect in China. Former President Bill Clinton played an essential role in developing these relations, exemplified by his speech in Shanghai in 1998, where he argued that America should not let concerns about human rights issues hinder the development of economic ties between the two countries.

In the 21st century, this relationship has become increasingly important as both countries have experienced significant changes. The United States is now the world’s sole superpower, while China has become one of the world’s leading economies. As these two countries undergo significant transformations, it is essential to examine their bilateral relations and identify areas of cooperation and potential points of conflict.

The United States has long been the preeminent global power, with a military and economic might that have no equal. For much of the 20th century, this worked to its advantage, as it was able to exert its influence on other countries while enjoying relative isolation from the rest of the world. However, with the rise of China and other countries in the 21st century, this is no longer the case. The United States must now confront a world where it is no longer the only superpower, and its relationships with other countries are becoming increasingly complex (Gontcharova, 2011).

With China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, there was a sharp increase in trade relationships across the nations. It led to increased investment by American companies in China and vice versa and counter-terrorism. Since the early 2000s, there has been a significant increase in Sino-US military cooperation. It has been primarily driven by American worries about China’s increasing military power, a perceived challenge to America’s position in Asia. In 2015, a senior Chinese military officer popularised “New Type of Great Power Relations” to highlight China’s ambitions to be recognized as an equal world power.

China’s meteoric economic growth has been propelled by several factors, including an open economy, a large population, and an aggressive investment in education and technology. Over the past decade, China has become the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter, totaling $2.3 trillion in 2015. It is also now the world’s second-largest economy, with a high Gross Domestic Production of more than $11 trillion as China’s economy has grown, its political and military power too. The Chinese government has used its newfound wealth to invest in several high-tech weapons systems, including aircraft carriers, stealth fighters, and ballistic missiles. It has also expanded its military presence in the South China Sea, embroiled in a territorial dispute with several other countries.

So far, the US has been reluctant to take a side in the ongoing disputes in the South China Sea. However, that could change if it decided that China’s actions were detrimental to its interests or allies in the region. Military tension between the countries is unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out altogether. The United States has been watching China’s rise with a mix of apprehension and envy. On the one hand, it is alarmed by China’s growing military power and aggressive stance in the South China Sea. On the other hand, it is impressed by China’s economic progress and its ability to modernize its economy rapidly.

In the last two decades, US-China relations have taken a few hits. In 2001, a US surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and crashed (Vinodan & Kurian, 2021). In 2009, a US security firm released a report testing cyberespionage techniques on several large American corporations from China, to which the Chinese government said it would investigate the intelligence breach. In 2010, the US announced a plan to sell arms to Taiwan. It angered the Chinese government and led to several months of tension. In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the US had been spying on China for years.

Another area of concern is China’s willingness to support Russia politically and financially. Although the country had always tried to maintain good relations with its northern neighbor, it now seems more committed than ever to supporting Russia in international affairs. It is most apparent when it comes to the ongoing conflict in Syria. In recent years, China has supported several UN resolutions to sanction Bashar al-Assad’s regime while also repeatedly blocking Western efforts to enforce them.

On the other hand, many Chinese citizens resent American hegemony for several reasons. The US has militarily and politically interfered in many countries’ internal affairs, including Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea. Americans also killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians during World War II with the atomic bomb and supported Taiwan’s independence movement in the 1950s and 60s.

The 21st century has seen a significant evolution in US-China relations. From trade disputes to accusations of cyber theft, the two countries have had their share of disagreements. Trade is a significant concern in US-China relations. The United States has long been concerned about China’s high tariffs and barriers to entry for American businesses. IN RECENT YEARS, the US has accused China of engaging in unfair trade practices, such as currency manipulation and intellectual property theft. As a result, the US has imposed tariffs on Chinese goods. China has responded to the US tariffs by imposing its tariffs on American goods.

The trade war between the two countries has hurt both economies. In particular, it has caused prices of consumer goods to increase and jobs to be lost. Another issue that has caused tension between the US and China is cybertheft (Lukin, 2019). The US has accused China of cyber espionage or stealing intellectual property from American businesses. China has denied these accusations, but the US has continued to pressure China to stop its cyberattacks.

Nevertheless, despite these tensions, the United States and China have made significant progress in other aspects of their bilateral relationship. In November 2014, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping announced that the United States would significantly reduce its carbon emissions by 26-28% before 2025, while China agreed it would peak its emissions by 2030. It was seen as a breakthrough, as China and US are responsible for over 40% of the carbon emitted to the globe. In November 2015, the countries also agreed on cyber security, in which both sides pledged not to conduct or support cyber theft of trade secrets or intellectual property for commercial gain.

The two countries have coexisted relatively peacefully up until recently, but with the election of Donald, Trump relations have become more strained. Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation, among other things. He has also threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods, which could spark a trade war between the two countries. Many Chinese citizens were angry with the US because they felt that Trump was trying to contain its development. Some of Trump’s policies, opposing the One China policy and supporting the independence of Taiwan, made the US-China relationship tense and uncertain (Chen, 2019). It could have severe consequences for both countries and the world. Despite their differences, the nations must continue to work together.

The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies, and their bilateral relationship will always be necessary. The two countries have somewhat different political systems, and their economies are inextricably linked. In order for the relationship to continue to grow and flourish, both sides need to continue to work together on issues where they can agree while also managing and resolving areas of disagreement in a constructive manner (Lejun, 2021). Tensions will always exist between these two great powers, but they must manage these tensions effectively not to jeopardize the overall relationship.

One area where the two countries have worked cooperatively is in international security. The two countries have partnered to address issues like the nuclear weapons program in North Korea and the issue of climate change. They also cooperate on UN peacekeeping missions. In 2015, the US and China reached a landmark deal to limit carbon emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference. While this agreement was widely viewed as a diplomatic success, there are areas where cooperative relations have been less successful. For example, despite years of negotiations on trade agreements such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, issues such as intellectual property protection remain unresolved.

The United States has long considered China’s human rights record an area of significant concern for bilateral relations (Kim, 2018). China has faced growing international criticism over its treatment of political dissidents and ethnic minorities in recent years. Chinese leaders have emphasized their country’s state-centric sovereignty system in response to these criticisms. Despite continued American pressure on human rights, leaders in Beijing have remained resistant to international intervention in domestic affairs.

While the US and China have often seen each other as adversaries, there are several reasons why they should continue to work together in the 21st century. The most important of these is global economic interdependence (Lampton, 2013). Simply put, American prosperity is heavily dependent on China’s continued growth. Therefore, the conflict between these two countries could result in higher tariffs or greater economic sanctions and significant trade disruption that negatively impacts both countries’ economies. It makes it far less likely that either country will move towards military confrontation since this would be too costly for all parties involved. Another reason both countries should cooperate is that doing so could help them address other major global issues.

While the United States and China have collaborated on particular security concerns affecting the globe, they have struggled to find common ground on topics such as climate change. In order to address these challenges, both countries need a stable relationship where each side can trust the other. Cooperative relations in one area will enable leaders in Beijing and Washington DC to build trust between them and gradually expand their areas of cooperation until they can find solutions for all of the world’s major problems.

Many scholars predict that the US-China relationship will continue to be unstable in the future, though most agree there will be no full-on conflict. The two countries have become too economically intertwined with severing all ties. While trade disputes cause tensions between these two countries, they pale in comparison with the economic benefits of cooperation. The countries’ shared interests in world stability and free trade make it unlikely that any US-China disagreement will escalate into a full-fledged military conflict between these two powers.

In conclusion, since the early 21st century, the two nations have experienced a complicated relationship. The two countries are the world’s largest economies and have many areas of mutual interest. Some of the key issues in US-China relations include trade, cybersecurity, human rights, and territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas. In recent years, these issues have become increasingly contentious, and the two countries have sometimes been unable to reach a consensus on moving forward. Therefore, friction is inevitable even though the two countries have extensive economic, trade, military, and cultural ties (Friedberg, 2005). The key to maintaining a constructive and positive relationship between the United States and China is through open dialogue and cooperation on areas of mutual interest while carefully managing the differences between them.

Bremmer, I. (2019, February 28).  U.S.-China relations are beyond repair as the trade war goes on . Time. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://time.com/5540855/us-china-trade-relationship/.

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Council on Foreign Relations. (2021).  Timeline: US relations with China 1949–2021 . Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-relations-china.

De Graaff, N., & Van Apeldoorn, B. (2018). US-China relations and the Liberal World Order: Contending Elites, colliding visions?  International Affairs ,  94 (1), 113–131. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iix232

Economy, E. c, Huang, Y., Cohen, J. A., Segal, A., & Gewirtz, J. (2020, December 15).  How 2020 shaped u.s.-china relations . Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved November 23, 2021, from https://www.cfr.org/article/how-2020-shaped-us-china-relations.

Friedberg, A. L. (2005). The future of u.s.-china relations: Is conflict inevitable?  International Security ,  30 (2), 7–45. https://doi.org/10.1162/016228805775124589

Goldstein, A. (2020). US-China rivalry in the twenty-first Century: Déjà Vu and Cold War II.  China International Strategy Review ,  2 (1), 48–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42533-020-00036-w

Gontcharova, A. (2011, July 8).  China: 21st Century “superpower”?  E. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/07/china-21st-century-superpower/.

Hass, R. (2020, February).  U.S.-China relations: The search for a new equilibrium . U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: THE SEARCH FOR A NEW EQUILIBRIUM. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FP_2020026_us_china_relations_hass.pdf.

Kim, H. J. (2018). The prospects of human rights in the US–china relations: A constructivist understanding.  International Relations of the Asia-Pacific ,  20 (1), 91–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcy020

Lampton, D. M. (2013). A new major-power relationship: Seeking a durable foundation for U.S.-China ties.  Asia Policy ,  16 (1), 51–68. https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2013.0025

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The China Questions 2

Critical Insights into US-China Relations

Edited by Maria Adele Carrai, Jennifer Rudolph, and Michael Szonyi

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ISBN 9780674270336

Publication date: 08/30/2022

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Following the success of The China Questions, a new volume of insights from top China specialists explains key issues shaping today’s US-China relationship.

For decades Americans have described China as a rising power. That description no longer fits: China has already risen. What does this mean for the US-China relationship? For the global economy and international security? Seeking to clarify central issues, provide historical perspective, and demystify stereotypes, Maria Adele Carrai, Jennifer Rudolph, and Michael Szonyi and an exceptional group of China experts offer essential insights into the many dimensions of the world’s most important bilateral relationship.

Ranging across questions of security, economics, military development, climate change, public health, science and technology, education, and the worrying flashpoints of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang, these concise essays provide an authoritative look at key sites of friction and potential collaboration, with an eye on where the US-China relationship may go in the future. Readers hear from leading thinkers such as James Millward on Xinjiang, Elizabeth Economy on diplomacy, Shelley Rigger on Taiwan, and Winnie Yip and William Hsiao on public health.

The voices included in The China Questions 2 recognize that the US-China relationship has changed, and that the policy of engagement needs to change too. But they argue that zero-sum thinking is not the answer. Much that is good for one society is good for both—we are facing not another Cold War but rather a complex and contextually rooted mixture of conflict, competition, and cooperation that needs to be understood on its own terms.

A fresh, lively and insightful book that can be read by student and specialist alike in search of a synoptic view of the relationship. —John Delury, Global Asia

A timely book. For general readers and students alike, these concise essays on critical aspects of the US-China relationship work very well. An impressive roster of authors collectively provides a broad overview of the many aspects of the relationship, going well beyond diplomacy and politics. The essays also work beautifully by themselves. —Odd Arne Westad, author of Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations

Focusing on the turbulent bilateral relationship between China and the United States, The China Questions 2 offers a wide range of accessible essays on topics from international relations to culture, in a tone that is lively and argumentative but always balanced. Overall, the book has a powerful message: the United States needs informed and clear-eyed engagement with China. —Rana Mitter, author of China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

Required reading. The authors are a who’s who of American scholars on US–China relations, and the topics include virtually everything that would be of concern to students, academics, and practitioners. At a time when there are too few books on the relationship generally, this fills a wide gap. The editors have my admiration. —Stephen A. Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States–China Relations

• Maria Adele Carrai specializes in the history of international law in East Asia and is the author of Sovereignty in China: A Genealogy of a Concept since 1840 . She is Assistant Professor of Global China Studies at New York University Shanghai.
• Jennifer Rudolph is author of Negotiated Power in Late Imperial China: The Zongli Yamen and the Politics of Reform and coeditor of The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power . She is Professor of Asian History and International/Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
• Michael Szonyi is author of The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China and Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line and coeditor of The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power . He is Frank Wen-hsiung Wu Professor of Chinese History and Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.

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U.S.-China Relations

The United States and China have one of the world’s most important and complex bilateral relationships. Since 1949, the countries have experienced periods of both tension and cooperation over issues including trade, climate change, and Taiwan.

People’s Republic of China Established

Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong establishes the People’s Republic of China in Beijing on October 1 after peasant-backed Communists defeat the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang and thousands of his troops flee to Taiwan. The United States—which backed the Nationalists against invading Japanese forces during World War II—supports Chiang’s exiled Republic of China government in Taipei, setting the stage for several decades of limited U.S. relations with mainland China.

Korean War Breaks Out

The Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invades South Korea on June 25. The United Nations and the United States rush to South Korea’s defense. China, in support of the communist North, retaliates when U.S., UN, and South Korean troops approach the Chinese border. As many as four million people die in the three-year conflict until the United Nations, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement in 1953  [PDF].

First Taiwan Strait Crisis

President Dwight Eisenhower lifts the U.S. navy blockade of Taiwan in 1953, leading Chiang Kai-shek to deploy thousands of troops to the Quemoy and Matsu islands in the Taiwan Strait in August 1954. Mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army responds by shelling the islands. Washington signs a mutual defense treaty with Chiang’s Nationalists. In the spring of 1955, the United States threatens a nuclear attack on China. That April, China agrees to negotiate, claiming a limited victory after the Nationalists' withdrawal from Dachen Island. Crises erupt again in 1956 and 1996.

Tibetan Uprising

Nine years after the People’s Republic of China asserts control over Tibet, a widespread uprising occurs in Lhasa. Thousands die in the ensuing crackdown by PRC forces, and the Dalai Lama flees to India. The United States joins the United Nations in condemning Beijing for human rights abuses in Tibet, while the Central Intelligence Agency helps arm the Tibetan resistance beginning in the late 1950s.

China’s First Atomic Test

China joins the nuclear club in October 1964 when it conducts its first test of an atomic bomb. The test comes amid U.S.-Sino tensions over the escalating conflict in Vietnam. By the time of the test, China has amassed troops along its border with Vietnam.

Sino-Soviet Border Conflict

Differences over security, ideology, and development models strain Sino-Soviet relations. China’s radical industrialization policies, known as the Great Leap Forward, lead the Soviet Union to withdraw advisors in 1960. Disagreements culminate in border skirmishes in March 1969. Moscow replaces Washington as China’s biggest threat, and the Sino-Soviet split contributes to Beijing’s eventual rapprochement with the United States.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

In the first public sign of warming relations between Washington and Beijing, China’s ping-pong team invites members of the U.S. team to China on April 6, 1971. Journalists accompanying the U.S. players are among the first Americans allowed to enter China since 1949. In July of 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger makes a secret trip to China. Shortly thereafter, the United Nations recognizes the People’s Republic of China, endowing it with the permanent Security Council seat that had been held by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China on Taiwan since 1945.

Nixon Visits China

President Richard Nixon spends eight days in China in February 1972, during which he meets Chairman Mao and signs the Shanghai Communiqué  with Premier Zhou Enlai. The communiqué sets the stage for improved U.S.-Sino relations by allowing China and the United States to discuss difficult issues, particularly Taiwan. However, normalization of relations between the two countries makes slow progress for much of the decade.

Formal Ties and One-China Policy

U.S. President Jimmy Carter grants China full diplomatic recognition, while acknowledging mainland China’s One-China principle and severing normal ties with Taiwan. Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, who leads China through major economic reforms, visits the United States shortly thereafter. However, in April, Congress approves the Taiwan Relations Act , allowing continued commercial and cultural relations between the United States and Taiwan. The act requires Washington to provide Taipei with defensive arms, but does not officially violate the United States’ One-China policy.

China in the Reagan Era

The Ronald Reagan administration issues the “Six Assurances” to Taiwan, including pledges that it will honor the Taiwan Relations Act, it would not mediate between Taiwan and China, and it had no set date to terminate arms sales to Taiwan. The Reagan administration then signs in August 1982 a third joint communiqué with the People’s Republic of China to normalize relations. It reaffirms the U.S. commitment to its One-China policy. Though President Reagan voices support for stronger ties with Taiwan during his presidential campaign, his administration works to improve Beijing-Washington relations at the height of U.S. concerns over Soviet expansionism. Reagan visits China in April 1984 and in June, the U.S. government permits Beijing to make purchases of U.S. military equipment .

Tiananmen Square Massacre

In the spring of 1989, thousands of students hold demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, demanding democratic reforms and an end to corruption. On June 3, the government sends in military troops to clear the square, leaving hundreds of protesters dead. In response, the U.S. government suspends military sales to Beijing and freezes relations.

Prominent Dissidents Deported

In September 1993, China releases Wei Jingsheng, a political prisoner since 1979. That year, President Bill Clinton launches a policy of “constructive engagement” with China. However, after Beijing loses its bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, the Chinese government imprisons Wei again. Four years later, Clinton secures the release of Wei and Tiananmen Square protester Wang Dan. Beijing deports both dissidents to the United States.

Taiwan’s First Free Presidential Vote

The Nationalist Party’s Lee Teng-hui wins Taiwan’s first free presidential elections by a large margin in March 1996, despite Chinese missile tests meant to sway Taiwanese voters against voting for the pro-independence candidate. The elections come a year after China recalls its ambassador after President Clinton authorizes a visit by Lee, reversing a fifteen-year-old U.S. policy against granting visas to Taiwan’s leaders. In 1996, Washington and Beijing agree to exchange officials again.

Belgrade Embassy Bombing

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) accidentally bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during its campaign against Serbian forces occupying Kosovo in May 1999, shaking U.S.-Sino relations. The United States and NATO offer apologies for the series of U.S. intelligence mistakes that led to the deadly bombing, but thousands of Chinese demonstrators protest throughout the country, attacking official U.S. property.

Normalized Trade Relations

President Clinton signs the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 in October, granting Beijing permanent normal trade relations with the United States and paving the way for China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001. Between 1980 and 2004, U.S.-China trade rises from $5 billion to $231 billion. In 2006, China surpasses Mexico as the United States’ second-biggest trade partner, after Canada.

U.S.-Sino Spy Plane Standoff

In April 2001, a U.S. reconnaissance plane collides with a Chinese fighter and makes an emergency landing on Chinese territory. Authorities on China’s Hainan Island detain the twenty-four-member U.S. crew. After twelve days and a tense standoff, authorities release the crew, and President George W. Bush expresses regret over the death of a Chinese pilot and the landing of the U.S. plane.

‘Responsible Stakeholder’

In a September 2005 speech, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick initiates a strategic dialogue with China. Recognizing Beijing as an emerging power, he calls on China to serve as a “responsible stakeholder” and use its influence to draw nations such as Sudan, North Korea, and Iran into the international system. That same year, North Korea walks away from Six-Party Talks aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. After North Korea conducts its first nuclear test in October 2006, China serves as a mediator to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

China Increases Military Spending

In March 2007, China announces an 18 percent budget increase in defense spending for 2007, totaling more than $45 billion. Increases in military expenditures average 15 percent a year from 1990 to 2005. During a 2007 tour of Asia, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney says China’s military buildup is “not consistent” with the country’s stated goal of a “peaceful rise.” China says it is increasing spending to provide better training and higher salaries for its soldiers, to “ protect national security and territorial integrity. ”

China Becomes Largest U.S. Foreign Creditor

In September 2008, China surpasses Japan to become the largest holder of U.S. debt—or treasuries—at around $600 billion. The growing interdependence between the U.S. and Chinese economies becomes evident as a financial crisis threatens the global economy, fueling concerns over U.S.-China economic imbalances.

China Becomes World’s Second-Largest Economy

China surpasses Japan as the world’s second-largest economy after it is valued at $1.33 trillion for the second quarter of 2010, slightly above Japan’s $1.28 trillion for that year. China is on track to overtake the United States as the world’s number one economy by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill. At the start of 2011, China reports a total GDP of $5.88 trillion for 2010, compared to Japan’s $5.47 trillion.

U.S. ‘Pivots’ Toward Asia

In an essay for Foreign Policy , U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlines a U.S. “pivot” to Asia. Clinton’s call for “increased investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region” is seen as a move to counter China’s growing clout. That month, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, U.S. President Barack Obama announces the United States and eight other nations have reached an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a multinational free trade agreement. Obama later announces plans to deploy 2,500 marines in Australia, prompting criticism from Beijing.

Rising Trade Tensions

The U.S. trade deficit with China rises from $273.1 billion in 2010 to an all-time high of $295.5 billion in 2011. The increase accounts for three-quarters of the growth in the U.S. trade deficit for 2011. In March, the United States, the EU, and Japan file a “request for consultations” with China at the World Trade Organization over its restrictions on exporting rare earth metals. The United States and its allies contend China's quota violates international trade norms, forcing multinational firms that use the metals to relocate to China. China calls the move “rash and unfair,” while vowing to defend its rights in trade disputes.

Dissident Flees to U.S. Embassy

Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng escapes house arrest in Shandong province on April 22 and flees to the U.S. embassy in Beijing. U.S. diplomats negotiate an agreement with Chinese officials allowing Chen to stay in China and study law in a city close to the capital. However, after Chen moves to Beijing, he changes his mind and asks to take shelter in the United States. The development threatens to undermine U.S.-China diplomatic ties, but both sides avert a crisis by allowing Chen to visit the United States as a student, rather than as an asylum seeker.

China’s New Leadership

The 18th National Party Congress concludes with the most significant leadership turnover in decades as about 70 percent of the members of the country’s major leadership bodies—the Politburo Standing Committee, the Central Military Commission, and the State Council—are replaced. Li Keqiang assumes the role of premier, while Xi Jinping replaces Hu Jintao as president, Communist Party general secretary, and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Xi delivers a series of speeches on the “rejuvenation” of China.

Sunnylands Summit

President Obama hosts President Xi for a “ shirt-sleeves summit ” at the Sunnylands Estate in California in a bid to build a personal rapport with his counterpart and ease tense U.S.-China relations. The leaders pledge to cooperate more effectively on pressing bilateral, regional, and global issues, including climate change and North Korea. Obama and Xi also vow to establish a “new model” of relations , a nod to Xi’s concept of establishing a “new type of great power relations” for the United States and China.

U.S. Indicts Chinese Nationals

A U.S. court indicts five Chinese hackers, allegedly with ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army, on charges of stealing trade technology from U.S. companies. In response, Beijing suspends its cooperation in the U.S.-China cybersecurity working group. In June 2015, U.S. authorities signal that there is evidence that Chinese hackers are behind the major online breach of the Office of Personnel Management and the theft of data from twenty-two million current and formal federal employees.

Joint Climate Announcement

On the sidelines of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Obama and President Xi issue a joint statement on climate change, pledging to reduce carbon emissions. Obama sets a more ambitious target for U.S. emissions cutbacks, and Xi makes China’s first promise to curb carbon emissions’ growth by 2030. These commitments by the world’s top polluters stirred hopes among some experts that they would boost momentum for global negotiations ahead of the 2015 UN-led Climate Change Conference in Paris.

U.S. Warns China Over South China Sea

At the fourteenth annual Shangri-La Dialogue on Asian security, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter calls on China to halt its controversial land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea, saying that the United States opposes “any further militarization” of the disputed territory . Ahead of the conference, U.S. officials say that images from U.S. naval surveillance provide evidence that China is placing military equipment on a chain of artificial islands, despite Beijing's claims that construction is mainly for civilian purposes.

Trump Affirms One-China Policy After Raising Doubts

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will honor the One-China policy in a call with President Xi. After winning the presidential election, Trump breaks with established practice by speaking on the telephone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and questioning  the U.S. commitment to its One-China policy. Washington’s policy for four decades has recognized that there is but one China. Under this policy, the United States has maintained formal ties with the People’s Republic of China but also maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan, including the provision of defense aid. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, visiting Beijing in March, describes the U.S.-China relationship as one “ built on nonconfrontation , no conflict, mutual respect, and always searching for win-win solutions.”

Trump Hosts Xi at Mar-a-Lago

President Trump welcomes China’s Xi for a two-day summit at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where bilateral trade and North Korea top the agenda. Afterward, Trump touts “ tremendous progress ” in the U.S.-China relationship and Xi cites a deepened understanding and greater trust building. In mid-May, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross unveils a ten-part agreement between Beijing and Washington to expand trade of products and services such as beef, poultry, and electronic payments. Ross describes the bilateral relationship as “ hitting a new high ,” though the countries do not address more contentious trade issues including aluminum, car parts, and steel.

Trump Tariffs Target China

The Trump administration announces sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports, worth at least $50 billion, in response to what the White House alleges is Chinese theft of U.S. technology and intellectual property. Coming on the heels of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports , the measures target goods including clothing, shoes, and electronics and restrict some Chinese investment in the United States. China imposes retaliatory measures in early April on a range of U.S. products, stoking concerns of a trade war between the world’s largest economies. The move marks a hardening of President Trump’s approach to China after high-profile summits with President Xi in April and November 2017.

U.S.-China Trade War Escalates

The Trump administration imposes fresh tariffs totaling $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. More than eight hundred Chinese products in the industrial and transport sectors, as well as goods such as televisions and medical devices, will face a 25 percent import tax. China retaliates with its own tariffs on more than five hundred U.S. products. The reprisal, also valued around $34 billion, targets commodities such as beef, dairy, seafood, and soybeans. President Trump and members of his administration believe that China is “ ripping off ” the United States, taking advantage of free trade rules to the detriment of U.S. firms operating in China. Beijing criticizes the Trump administration’s moves as “ trade bullying ” and cautions that tariffs could trigger global market unrest.

Pence Speech Signals Hard-Line Approach

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivers a speech marking the clearest articulation yet of the Trump administration’s policy toward China and a significant hardening of the United States’ position. Pence says the United States will prioritize competition over cooperation by using tariffs to combat “economic aggression.” He also condemns what he calls growing Chinese military aggression, especially in the South China Sea, criticizes increased censorship and religious persecution by the Chinese government, and accuses China of stealing American intellectual property and interfering in U.S. elections. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounces Pence’s speech as “ groundless accusations ” and warns that such actions could harm U.S.-China ties.

Canada Arrests Huawei Executive

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom and electronics company Huawei, is arrested in Canada at the United States’ request. The U.S. Justice Department alleges Huawei and Meng violated trade sanctions against Iran and committed fraud and requests her extradition. In apparent retaliation, China detains two Canadian citizens, who officials accuse of undermining China’s national security. Calling Meng’s arrest a “ serious political incident ,” Chinese officials demand her immediate release. In September 2021, Meng reaches a deal with U.S. prosecutors and is allowed to return to China. The Chinese government also releases the two Canadians.

Huawei Sues the United States

Amid legal proceedings against Meng, Huawei sues the United States in a separate lawsuit for banning U.S. federal agencies from using the telecom giant’s equipment. In a battle with Beijing for technological supremacy , the Trump administration launches an aggressive campaign warning other countries not to use Huawei equipment to build 5G networks, claiming the Chinese government could use the company to spy.

Trade War Intensifies

After trade talks break down, the Trump administration raises tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China retaliates by announcing plans to increase tariffs on $60 billion worth of American goods. President Trump says he believes the high costs imposed by tariffs will force China to make a deal favorable to the United States, while China’s Foreign Ministry says the United States has “ extravagant expectations .” Days later, the Trump administration bans U.S. companies from using foreign-made telecommunications equipment that could threaten national security , a move believed to target Huawei. The U.S. Commerce Department also adds Huawei to its foreign entity blacklist.

U.S. Labels China a Currency Manipulator

After China’s central bank lets the yuan weaken significantly, the Trump administration designates China a currency manipulator . The designation, applied to China for the first time since 1994, is mainly symbolic, but it comes less than a week after Trump announced higher tariffs on $300 billion worth of goods. That means everything the United States imports from China now faces taxes. Beijing warns that the designation will “ trigger financial market turmoil .”

Trump Signs Bill Supporting Hong Kong Protesters

President Trump signs the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act after it passes in the U.S. Congress with overwhelming majorities. The legislation authorizes the United States to sanction individuals responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong. It also requires U.S. officials to evaluate every year whether Hong Kong enjoys a “high degree of autonomy” from Beijing. Many of the pro-democracy protesters, who have been demonstrating since June , celebrate the bill’s passage. Chinese officials condemn the move, impose sanctions on several U.S.-based organizations, and suspend U.S. warship visits to Hong Kong.

‘Phase One’ Trade Deal Signed

President Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He sign the agreement [PDF], a breakthrough in the nearly two-year trade war between the world’s two largest economies. The deal relaxes some U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and commits China to buying an additional $200 billion worth of American goods, including agricultural products and cars, over two years. China also pledges to enforce intellectual property protections. But the agreement maintains most tariffs and does not mention the Chinese government’s extensive subsidies, a longtime concern of the United States, though Trump says these could be tackled in a future deal . Days before the signing, the United States dropped its designation of China as a currency manipulator .

Tensions Soar Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The Trump administration bars all non-U.S. citizens who recently visited mainland China from entering the United States amid an outbreak of a new coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan. By March, the World Health Organization (WHO) designates the outbreak a pandemic, after it spreads to more than one hundred countries. Leading officials in both China and the United States blame the other side for the pandemic. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson claims without evidence that the U.S. military brought the virus to China, while President Trump makes repeated references to the “Chinese virus,” which he says spread because of failures by the Chinese government. In April, top officials in both countries change their tones by highlighting areas for cooperation amid the crisis. Still, Trump faults the WHO for being biased toward China  and halts U.S. funding to the organization.

China Expels American Journalists

The Chinese government expels at least thirteen journalists from three U.S. newspapers—the New York Times , Wall Street Journal , and Washington Post —whose press credentials are set to expire in 2020. Beijing also demands that those outlets, as well as TIME and Voice of America, share information with the government about their operations in China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry says the moves are in response to the U.S. government’s decision earlier in the year to limit the number of Chinese journalists from five state-run media outlets in the United States to 100, down from 160, and designate those outlets as foreign missions. In November 2021, Washington and Beijing agree to ease restrictions on journalists working in each other’s countries. 

Trump Ends Hong Kong’s Special Status

Two weeks after Beijing passes a new national security law for Hong Kong, President Trump signs an executive order ending the city’s preferential trade status with the United States. He also signs legislation to sanction officials and businesses that undermine Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy. Chinese officials threaten to impose retaliatory sanctions on U.S. individuals and entities. They denounce what they call U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs, including Washington’s announcement a day earlier declaring most of Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea illegal. 

U.S., China Close Consulates in Diplomatic Escalation

The United States orders China to close its consulate in Houston, Texas, alleging that it was a hub of espionage and intellectual property theft. China condemns the order and retaliates by closing the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. In the same week, Washington indicts two Chinese hackers for allegedly stealing coronavirus vaccine research and sanctions eleven Chinese companies for their reported role in human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blames the United States for tensions. 

Pompeo Says Engagement With China Has Failed

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a speech, titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future,” signaling a profound shift in U.S. policy . He declares that the era of engagement with the Chinese Communist Party is over, condemning its unfair trade practices, intellectual property theft, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and aggressive moves in the East and South China Seas. He calls on Chinese citizens and democracies worldwide to press Beijing to change its behavior and respect the rules-based international order.

Trump Ramps Up Pressure as Transition Looms

President Trump attempts to cement his legacy of being tough on China during his final weeks in office. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe calls China “ the greatest threat to America today ,” while the Commerce Department adds dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s biggest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), to its trade blacklist . The State Department tightens visa rules for the around ninety million members of the Chinese Communist Party. It also sanctions more Chinese officials, including fourteen members of China’s legislative body, over abuses in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and elsewhere. Additionally, the White House bans U.S. investments in Chinese companies it says have ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Chinese officials vow retaliation against these and other actions the Trump administration takes.

U.S. Designates China’s Abuses of Uyghurs as Genocide

On Trump’s last day in office, Pompeo declares that China is committing crimes against humanity and genocide against Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group primarily from China’s Xinjiang region. The United States is the first country to apply those terms to abuses the Chinese government has committed over the past few years. The Chinese government denies genocide is taking place. The Joe Biden administration affirms Pompeo’s declaration; by the end of the year, it bans all imports from Xinjiang.

Biden Maintains Trump Tariffs, Other Tough Measures

The first in-person meeting between top Biden administration officials and Chinese officials, in Anchorage, Alaska, reflects deep disagreements between the two sides and ends without a joint statement. In the months after the meeting, the Biden administration continues some Trump administration policies, although it places more emphasis on coordinating its actions with allies. It maintains tariffs on Chinese imports, sanctions Chinese officials over policies in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, blacklists dozens of Chinese companies, and expands a Trump-era ban on American investment in Chinese firms with ties to the military. In his first speech to Congress , in April, President Biden stresses the importance of boosting investment in U.S. infrastructure and technology to compete with China.

At U.S. Urging, NATO Declares China a ‘Security Challenge’

NATO, which has focused on deterring Russian aggression and terrorism in recent years, releases a communiqué expanding the alliance’s focus to include threats from China, such as its nuclear weapons development and military modernization. “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security,” the statement says. It is the first time that a NATO communiqué references threats from China. The declaration comes as the Biden administration pushes its allies to collectively respond to China.

Collaboration on Climate Change Amid Tensions

The United States and China, the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, sign a joint statement during the UN climate summit in Glasgow. They agree to boost cooperation on combating climate change over the next decade and work together on increasing the use of renewable energy, developing regulatory frameworks, and deploying technologies such as carbon capture. U.S. and Chinese officials applaud the agreement, with Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua saying, “There is more agreement between the United States and China than divergence.” 

Biden, Xi Discuss ‘Guardrails’ to Avoid Conflict

The leaders’ first formal meeting since Biden took office is held virtually and lasts more than three hours. Similar to the meeting in Alaska, the leaders voice issues of long-standing disagreement, with Biden raising concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses and Xi saying that U.S. support for Taiwan is like “ playing with fire .” There are no major breakthroughs nor a concluding joint statement, though Biden says they establish “guardrails” to avoid conflict, and experts say it is a positive step that the meeting even takes place. 

U.S. Imposes Diplomatic Boycott on Beijing Olympics

The United States imposes a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere. A handful of other countries, including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, also refuse to send officials to the games. Chinese officials say the United States is trying to “ politicize sports , create divisions and provoke confrontation.” No athletes publicly protest during the Olympics, though several skip the opening ceremony and speak out against China’s abuses after the games.

Biden Presses Xi on Russia’s War in Ukraine

Days after U.S. officials say Russia asked China for military assistance , Biden holds a video call with Xi and threatens “consequences” if China provides material support. The call comes weeks after Russia invades Ukraine; during that time, China refuses to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the war and the resulting humanitarian crisis. Chinese diplomats and state media outlets also repeat a Russian conspiracy theory that the United States is financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine. During the call, Biden lays out sanctions and other efforts that are coordinated with allies to punish Russia. Xi criticizes the sanctions , saying they “would only make people suffer.” Both leaders express support for peace talks. 

Biden’s China Strategy a Call to Revive U.S. Competitiveness

In a long-awaited speech , Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasizes the importance of bolstering U.S. competitiveness toward China. He calls China the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order” and contrasts the country’s authoritarianism with U.S. commitments to advancing democracy and human rights, but he also says Washington is determined to avoid conflict. The three pillars of the Biden administration’s strategy are investing in domestic industry, technology, and infrastructure; aligning with allies and partners to oppose China’s increasing aggression; and competing with China globally. The Chinese Foreign Ministry denounces Blinken’s speech as “disinformation,” countering that China is a “ guardian of the international order .”

Tensions Flare Over Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan

After months of Chinese officials warning the United States against boosting ties with Taiwan, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taipei in a trip she says is to demonstrate U.S. support for the island. The trip leads Beijing to suspend U.S.-China climate talks, cut off some high-level military communication channels, and sanction Pelosi. The Chinese military conducts live-fire drills that effectively encircle the island and are much bigger than exercises conducted during the last Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996. It also launches ballistic missiles over the island, some of which land in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and Chinese aircraft cross the median line between mainland China and Taiwan. The Group of Seven (G7) objects to China’s “ aggressive military activity ,” saying it risks destabilizing the region. The Chinese Foreign Ministry blames the United States for the tensions, while Taiwanese President Tsai says China’s response has undermined the status quo .

U.S. Restrictions Shock China’s Chip Industry

The U.S. Commerce Department places sweeping restrictions [PDF] on exports of U.S.-made advanced computing chips and related equipment to China. Commerce officials say China is using these items to “produce advanced military systems” and “commit human rights abuses.” U.S. companies and individuals who want to support China’s chip development now require approval from the U.S. government to do so. The restrictions also apply to foreign companies that use any U.S.-made tools and software. Experts expect the move to hobble China’s domestic chip industry , which has received a surge of government funding in recent years but still lacks the ability to manufacture the most advanced chips. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson says the United States “ will only hurt and isolate itself ” with the restrictions.

Biden, Xi Seek to Repair the Relationship

In Indonesia, Biden and Xi meet in person for the first time during Biden’s presidency. Both leaders express a desire to ease bilateral tensions and agree to reopen communication channels, including climate talks that were suspended months earlier. Biden says the United States will “compete vigorously” with China, but that he’s “ not looking for conflict .” Xi says the countries need to “explore the right way to get along,” according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout . Over the three-hour meeting, the leaders also discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine. According to the U.S. readout, the leaders expressed opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, while the Chinese readout does not mention nuclear weapons. Biden raises concerns about rights abuses in Xinjiang and Chinese aggression against Taiwan, emphasizing that U.S. policy toward the island has not changed.

U.S. Shoots Down Suspected Chinese Spy Balloon

President Biden orders the U.S. Air Force to shoot down a Chinese-operated balloon off the southeastern U.S. coast after security officials say it was spying on sensitive military sites. China calls the balloon a civilian weather-monitoring craft that accidentally veered into U.S. air space. China’s foreign ministry condemns the downing as “a serious violation of international practice” and vows retaliation. The incident causes the Biden administration to cancel a trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing, raising fresh concerns over a worsening of U.S.-China relations already strained by U.S. support for Taiwan and trade frictions.

Biden and Xi Hold Talks Following APEC Summit

The two leaders meet in San Francisco, marking their first engagement in a year. Biden and Xi discuss topics including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The leaders commit to resuming a bilateral working group to combat illicit drug manufacturing and restarting high-level military-to-military communication, and agree to establish a working group to discuss the risks of artificial intelligence. Xi also suggests in the meeting that Beijing would send new pandas to Washington as a sign of friendship, after their departure in October 2023. The summit aims to demonstrate some repairing of ties between the two countries—ultimately meeting low expectations .

High-Level Bilateral Meetings Signal Improved Contacts Amid Strains

Biden and Xi share a phone call on April 2 to reiterate their agenda from the November summit as well as their continuing efforts to address climate change and people-to-people exchanges. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen leads an economic delegation to China, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin resumes dialogue with China’s Minister of National Defense, Admiral Dong Jun, for the first time since November 2022. On April 26, Blinken travels to Shanghai and Beijing to meet with top Chinese officials, including Xi. Blinken warns China against supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, and discusses issues including North Korea’s nuclear missile programs and the Israel-Hamas war. Less than a month later, Biden imposes new  U.S. tariffs on Chinese electronic vehicles and other green products.

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Central Questions in U.S.-China Relations amid Global Turbulence

Photo: WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary by Ryan Hass and Jude Blanchette

Published July 21, 2022

Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine is only the latest in a series of events that have shaken the global order and raised profound questions about the nature and frequency of state-to-state military conflict, the trajectory of globalization and technological innovation, and the utility of legacy multilateral institutions. The U.S.-China relationship, arguably the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship, has been impacted by these recent shocks, but has also itself been the cause of much of the uncertainty surrounding the international order.

To help make sense of recent developments and their impacts on the trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship, the Brookings Institution and CSIS convened a group of 10 regional and functional experts with varied backgrounds and opinions for a two-day closed-door workshop on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The resulting discussion raised more questions than it answered.

In order to help give direction to future policy research, the Freeman Chair in China Studies summarizes four key questions that emerged in the course of the workshop, and that the authors believe the foreign policy community should directly grapple with in order to orient U.S. grand strategy on a more sustainable and effective path.

The Sustainability of the Current International Order

While the United States continues to declare support for the existing international order, U.S. action indicates a much more ambivalent, and at times hostile, attitude towards the web of multilateral bodies, organizations, and institutions that have shaped the post-WWII period. True, U.S. leaders broadly believe that this order has been universally beneficial in preventing great power conflict and improving livelihoods across the world since World War II, but frustrations with the slowness with which these organizations often work, and the compromises needed to sustain widespread buy-in, have eroded U.S. enthusiasm for the day-to-day work of global governance.

Chinese leaders are similarly dissatisfied with the existing international order, but for different reasons. For Beijing, the current order is ill-equipped to address twenty-first-century challenges on terms it agrees with, in large part because it views the status quo as overweighted to views and voices from the West. To address these perceived inequities, China strives to shape global governance institutions from within, while simultaneously creating its own set of parallel and overlapping initiatives.

There is a fundamental question underlying how the United States responds to China’s ambition to alter and in places revise the existing order: Which, if any, of China’s preferences and expectations for global governance can be addressed? Will the United States be more competitive and influential by holding the line and rallying efforts to resist all Chinese attempts to adjust the existing order? Or will the United States gain attraction and influence by demonstrating itself to be open to adjustments that give greater voice to developing countries and emerging powers, including potentially through reform to the structure of the UN Security Council? Pushing back against all of China’s actions might prove unrealistic, or at least unacceptably costly, both in terms of scare resources and strategic bandwidth. Additionally, the ability of the United States to assert its will on the international order has been diminished by power shifts in the international order well outside of U.S. control. Pure acceptance of China’s preferences, on the other hand, is not a realistic option. There is no purchase for such an approach in the United States, given that it would undoubtedly undermine U.S. leadership and erode core normative elements of the broadly liberal and rules-based order. Where should the balance be struck?

How experts approach this question is often informed by how they conceptualize U.S.-China rivalry—either as a struggle to preserve power preeminence on the world stage, or as a more fluid and global competition to attract partners and gain support for defined priorities. Regardless of which side of the debate analysts come down on, ambivalence is not an option. The international order is fluid. Without guiding principles about which elements of the existing order are most crucial for protecting U.S. interests and values, the United States will find itself backfooted and reactive to initiatives emanating from Beijing and elsewhere.

The Future of the China-Russia Relationship

It is broadly accepted in the U.S. expert community that Sino-Russian relations are likely to deepen in the coming years, assuming both President Putin and President Xi remain in power. Both leaders nurture similar grievances about the distribution of power in the international system and share a common perception that the West harbors ideological hostility toward them.

At the same time, important questions exist about the precise contours of the Sino-Russian relationship in the coming years and decades. How will their military partnership evolve now that Russia has proven itself far less adept at combat than previously expected? How will the growing power gap between Beijing and Moscow impact bilateral trust? What happens if Putin or Xi unexpectedly leave office?

Similar questions remain on what the appropriate U.S. response to this growing strategic alignment should be. Few analysts recommend that the United States attempt to actively drive a wedge between the two countries, as few think the United States would have the ability to do this with any degree of control. A hardening domestic view of both Russia and China likewise forecloses this as a realistic option.

Some see the Sino-Russian relationship as part of a broader strategic challenge to the United States, one that is best conceptualized as an emerging strategic front of autocracies. Here, the United States cannot afford to think of these two countries as discrete challenges, but rather “two-front” strategic competition. While trust between Beijing and Moscow may fluctuate, and even erode given Beijing’s growing power differential, a shared antagonism for the United States and the U.S.-led order is sufficient to sustain a meaningful relationship for the foreseeable future.

A countervailing view is that such framing risks generating self-fulfilling momentum for Sino-Russian relations and creates complications for the United States’ relationships elsewhere, given that few other countries outside of Europe support such ideological framing. While lumping the two powers together might comport with U.S. domestic politics, it narrows the United States’ options in the rest of the world, to say nothing of the narrowed path this would force the U.S.-China relationship.

Downplaying the geometry of the U.S.-China-Russia triangle might also expose opportunities for the United States to make progress in other aspects of its diplomatic portfolio. For example, China’s active embrace of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine has created fertile ground for greater transatlantic coordination to address challenges posed by Chinese behavior. Similarly, countries that previously had hoped to play China and Russia off each other may be losing bargaining leverage to do so, thereby opening opportunities for the United States to make inroads. This could present openings for the United States to strengthen its influence with Vietnam, in central Asia, and elsewhere.

Regardless of how one comes down on the issue, the Russia-China strategic alignment poses important questions for the direction and contours of U.S. foreign policy that cannot effectively be answered with previous frameworks, historical analogies, or simplistic heuristics.

China: Peaking or Ascending?

Participants in this workshop were evenly split on whether China is ascending or peaking in overall national power. The results were similar when asked whether China’s power is peaking or ascending relative to the United States. While acknowledging the limits of insight into Chinese leaders’ thinking on these questions, all participants felt that China’s leaders believe their country is ascending in overall national power and in relative national strength vis-à-vis the United States.

No participant in the workshop forecast any scenario of precipitous Chinese decline in overall power. There was broad consensus, however, that the increasingly ideological bent of Chinese policymaking, including in greater state involvement in the economy, was limiting opportunities for self-correction and economic growth. This dynamic is weakening the economic underpinnings of China’s global power. China’s increasingly nationalistic diplomacy also is limiting its appeal abroad.

On the other hand, China’s military strength is growing in absolute terms. The country remains capable of mobilizing vast resources and concentrating them on national priorities. China is world leader in a growing number of fields, e.g., 5G telecommunication technologies, facial and voice recognition, commercial drones, solar cells, and mobile payments. With one-fifth of humanity and a central position in many global value chains, China will remain a formidable power for the foreseeable future. China also employs different tools to build influence overseas. It promises policy continuity and focuses on cultivating relations with elite actors in other countries. Beijing’s capacity to build influence overseas should not be underestimated, even if metrics such as public opinion polls and Belt and Road Initiative project funds are trending downward.

How U.S. policymakers and analysts conceptualize the directionality of power capabilities is of incredible significance. If time and momentum are on China’s side, as Xi Jinping frequently asserts, then Beijing might be willing to adopt a more farsighted and patient foreign policy. If, on the other hand, the Chinese leadership sees its window of opportunity on issues ranging from Taiwan to its ability to deliver breakthrough technologies as shrinking or even collapsing, then Beijing might act out of forced urgency.

Given the importance of these assessments, more work needs to be done to understand the strengths and weaknesses of China’s political and economic system, as well as how perceptions of power are often driving analysis more than the measured calculation of national capabilities.

Beijing’s Evolving Strategy toward Taiwan

There appears to be a cognitive gap in how members of the U.S. policy expert community evaluate Beijing’s actions toward Taiwan. One group views Beijing as opportunistic and impatient in its pursuit of cross-strait unification. Another group sees Beijing as disinclined to wager China’s future on a cross-strait conflict unless its back is up against the wall and Beijing sees no options other than war to protect or advance its interests. Where one sits on this starting point assumption colors how they interpret Chinese actions relating to Taiwan.

For those inclined to see China as an opportunistic actor, China’s investments in new military capabilities signal future intent to employ force to compel unification. Each air incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone or naval operation around Taiwan is part of a rehearsal for a future military operation. For those inclined to see Beijing as remaining committed to seeking to “win without fighting,” China’s military maneuvers around Taiwan are designed more so as deterrent signals to Taiwan and the United States and shows of strength to China’s domestic audience.

The documentary evidence does little to decisively clarify Beijing’s actual intentions. Authoritative statements from Xi Jinping on a timeline for unification are vague or sufficiently long-term that they lose any precise utility. On the other hand, official statements declaring that China seeks a “peaceful reunification” do not square with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) frequent and aggressive saber-rattling.

Beyond these cognitive gaps, four other issues were raised in the dialogue. First, Beijing does not appear to have a sellable approach for generating support from the Taiwan public for unification. Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework has lost political viability following Beijing’s trampling of Hong Kong’s autonomy. Without a viable strategy, Beijing could grow dangerously reactive to events. Second, there is a bias in U.S. debates on Taiwan toward presentism. Thinking is underdeveloped for how the United States will navigate cross-strait relations post-2024, when China will have completed its leadership transition, Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen will be term-limited out of office, and the United States will have completed its presidential election. Third, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened alertness to Chinese military campaign preparations. This heightened alertness could limit Beijing’s ability to pursue incremental upticks in pressure because any uptick could become viewed as a precursor to another Ukraine. Given how normalized Chinese military pressure on Taiwan has become, there is need for fresh thinking on thresholds that, if crossed, would signal the start of a Taiwan Strait crisis. Fourth, China has ample capacity to impose pain on Taiwan, but has few options for doing so without harming itself in the process. Even in scenarios short of conflict, such as restricting naval passage through the Taiwan Strait, Beijing would risk causing maritime insurers to withdraw coverage for commercial cargo. China’s export-dependent economy would be the first casualty of any such scenario.

As the questions raised in this analysis illustrate, the U.S.-China relationship presently is navigating a period of profound fluidity. While there are few indicators of any foreseeable lowering of tensions on the horizon, the situation is not so bad that it cannot get worse. These four fundamental questions reinforce the imperative for policymakers and members of the policy community to interrogate assumptions and build durable, empirically driven models for understanding events inside China and interpreting Chinese activities abroad. The more precise an understanding policymakers and the policy community can develop around these questions, the higher the likelihood that the United States will prove capable of pursuing effective policies for protecting itself and its allies and promoting its interests on the world stage.

Jude Blanchette holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Ryan Hass is a senior fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair at the Brookings Institution.

This commentary was made possible with support from the Ford Foundation.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

Jude Blanchette

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The US-China relations Essay

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Today it is rather difficult to discuss the US-China relations from one point of view with accentuating only positive aspects of the countries’ relationship which can lead to the effective cooperation or with focusing only on the misunderstandings between the countries which contribute to the development of the competition between the US and China.

The problem of the character of the relations between the US and China is one of the key questions which are actively discussed on the threshold of the election of 2012. Is China a strategic partner or a strategic competitor of the US?

Although the US and China do not base their relations on the principles of the open confrontation and seek for the effective cooperation in dealing with many international and domestic questions, there are a lot of aspects according to which the countries cannot reach the mutual understanding under the influence of the rapid growth of China and determining its strong position at the global arena.

That is why it is possible to speak about the US-China relations as tending to a kind of competition or rather suspicious relations as opposite to the situation of the possible partnership. Moreover, the state of affairs can change tomorrow with references to the changes in the world policy and economy.

The relations between the US and China have a long history and can be discussed as difficult with accentuating the peculiarities of the policies provided by the US and Chinese governments during different periods of time. The US as the most powerful country in the world was always inclined to control the situation in the globe economy and policy referring to establishing the international relations with the other countries.

Analysts also observe the tendencies of the US to control the situation in relations with China. However, today to control the peculiarities of China’s strategy is difficult because of the country’s rapid economic progress (Sutter, 2010). Politicians from the both countries do not concentrate on the possible conflict in the relations and accentuate the aspects for the further cooperation.

Nevertheless, the pressure in the US-China relations is obvious, and it is explained by the misunderstandings in providing the policy connected with such issues as trade questions, energy problem, human rights, and Taiwan problem (Sutter, 2010).

If the competition in the field of the economic powerfulness can be considered as rather questionable because of the quite different positions of the countries, the issues mentioned earlier can be discussed as influential for the development of the US-China relations on the principles contradicting to the mutual cooperation.

Analyzing the character of the relations between the US and China, it is important to determine the factors which contribute to the development of the relations between the countries as potential partners or as potential competitors.

Thus, both countries are inclined to develop the effective partnership in the field of fighting with terrorism and providing the cooperation on the global environmental issues and the questions of the peace and stability. These problems are not connected directly with the economic issues and allow solving the questions favorably for the both countries.

However, such factors as the rapid economic growth of China which results in the increase of the country’s influence on the foreign states, and particularly on the US, is crucial for complicating the relations. “China’s rise is having a large and complex impact on the United States and Asia, and on various global issues” (Lieberthal & Pollack, 2012).

Moreover, the expanding military potential of China and misunderstandings on Taiwan problem and the role of the US in the conflict contribute to the development of the countries’ mutual suspicions (Garrett, 2006).

The difficulties in the US-China relations can be also explained by the countries’ lack of knowledge on the question of their strategic intentions. Thus, today the US makes accents on the fact that it is necessary to develop the dialogue between the countries in order to determine the priorities in their relations and focus on the establishment of the long-term cooperation in order to avoid the possible conflicts and misunderstandings.

The US and China are interested in the development of these relations and state that they are strategically important (Sutter, 2010). Nevertheless, a number of controversial questions according to which the views of the governments in both countries are different can prevent the US and China from implementing the healthy relations based on the principles of cooperation.

To establish the effective long-term relations, it is significant to achieve the successful solution of the economic and military questions which contribute to forming the disbalance in the countries’ relations.

Having analyzed the character of the relations between the US and China, it is possible to note that in spite of the active positions of the countries in relation to the development of the cooperative relations or partnership between them, the situation can be discussed as rather competitive with references to a range of economic factors which influence the peculiarities of the countries’ relations.

The countries cannot be considered as open competitors depending on their global positions, but their relations also do not tend to the partnership. However, both countries are inclined to contribute to their further cooperation.

Garrett, B. (2006). US-China relations in the era of globalization and terror: A framework for analysis. Journal of Contemporary China, 15 (48), 389-415.

Lieberthal, K. G. & Pollack, J. D. (2012). Establishing credibility and trust the next President must manage America’s most important relationship . Web.

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• 23 July 2024

Why US–China relations are too important to be left to politicians

• Yasheng Huang 0

Yasheng Huang is a professor of global economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

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The 45th anniversary of student exchanges between the United States and China was marked this year in Washington DC. Credit: Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG/Getty

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At the end of August, the US–China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement (STA) is set to lapse . This historic pact to support joint research has been renewed every five years since it was first signed in 1979, when the two nations normalized diplomatic relations. But in a heated election year and with only one bipartisan consensus in US politics — antagonism towards China — it is uncertain whether the STA will be renewed this time.

China–US research collaborations are in decline — this is bad news for everyone

In February, the STA was extended for another six months after an open-letter campaign — launched by physicists Steven Kivelson and Peter Michelson at Stanford University in California — called on US President Joe Biden to renew the agreement . The letter, which was signed by more than 1,000 researchers , including Nobel laureates, argued that the STA is a framework for open, fundamental research and that such research benefits the United States and the world.

Such research is a bedrock principle of scientific enterprise. In the United States it is protected under the National Security Decision Directive 189 (NSDD-189), issued by the administration of president Ronald Reagan in 1985 during the cold war and reaffirmed by president George W. Bush in 2001 after the terrorist attacks on 11 September. NSDD-189 establishes that the products of fundamental research should remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible, promoting open and free communication of scientific findings. The directive is intended to support US leadership in science and technology and acknowledges that the sharing of fundamental scientific knowledge is rarely a security threat.

In the past decade, however, geopolitical dynamics have shifted, leading the US government to increasingly overlook this bedrock principle. US-based researchers who have conducted normal academic activities with their Chinese counterparts have been branded as spies. Agents of US Customs and Border Protection have interrogated scientists simply because of their Chinese backgrounds and their research disciplines. In 2023, Florida enacted a bill restricting the hiring of graduate students from a “country of concern”, mainly China, in state universities’ academic laboratories. In January this year, the US Congress attempted to resurrect the ‘China Initiative’ , a programme set up by the US Department of Justice to prosecute perceived Chinese spies in US research and industry, even though the initial programme that was launched in 2018 was plagued with flaws and was shut down in 2022. In June, the US House of Representatives proposed a bill that would prohibit the Department of Defense from giving funding to any US university that has research collaborations with China.

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Regrettably, these policy actions — poorly thought out in my view and tainted with racial profiling — are a sign of things to come. At a practical level, the era of close and unfettered collaborations between US and Chinese scientists and technologists has come to an end.

I think that scientists should now consider going beyond arguing for openness just for fundamental research and craft a pragmatic case for continuing bilateral collaborations in certain areas. More pragmatic narratives and an operational programme that fully addresses the national security imperatives while preserving some aspects of productive collaborations between the two countries are needed. Here, I propose some ideas for discussion.

Science and politics are interlinked

Three obstacles stand in the way of further scientific and technological collaborations between the United States and China.

First, rightly or wrongly, there is an anti-collaborative bias embedded in US government support for science. Federal government steps up funding for research and development (R&D) not during times of geopolitical amity but during spells of animosity. For example, the launch of the Soviet Union satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957 pushed the United States to make large investments in science and technology during the cold war.

Academic leaders and scholars (see go.nature.com/4cpzz53 ) in the United States have used this historical analogy to argue for more federal spending for R&D in the face of mounting geopolitical and economic challenges from China. But researchers should recognize an inherent disconnect when they call for more government support while simultaneously pressing for continued collaborations with China. Only the most acute geopolitical enmity can encourage the federal government to act, but that acute sense of rivalry also galvanizes opposition to collaborations with China, the country that motivated the ramping up of support for science in the first place.

Second, policymakers and the public do not differentiate between science and technology as sharply as many in the academic community do. After all, the public foots the bill for scientific research and has a right to expect tangible benefits from that investment and to not be harmed by it. The distinction between fundamental and applied research is extraordinarily difficult to register in the mind of the public and of their representatives, the politicians.

Advocates of US–China collaborations can be conflicted and selective on this issue. They have pointed to the intrinsic value of fundamental research as well as to the practical benefits for the US economy and society when scientific collaborations lead to technological advancements. Both positions are valid, but putting them together also highlights the concern that when an adversary is in possession of such science, it poses a threat in the form of applications of the research. Once you acknowledge the potential benefits through the applied channel of science, you are forced to recognize the potential harm through the same channel.

China’s President Xi Jinping (left) and US President Joe Biden met in California in 2023. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty

This is not a refutation of the fundamental research argument but an acknowledgement that science and technology are intricately connected. In March, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) released a report 1 by an elite science advisory group called JASON, which provides guidance to the US government. The report accepts that ‘technology readiness levels’ should be a consideration in deciding how open a particular research project should be. The JASON report makes that point on technical grounds — that the speed of translation of research concepts to applications in certain fields has accelerated owing to factors such as increased globalization and the Internet. My point is that logical consistency requires us to be upfront about both sides of applied science — the upside to the US economy, environment and health arising from scientific and technological progress in China, but also the downside of deploying such knowledge for military purposes.

Why the US border remains ‘a place of terror’ for Chinese researchers

Third, the geopolitical context of our time is truly grave. The cautious and measured JASON report makes this point: “Recent efforts of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to preferentially direct fundamental research toward military needs, and its decision to restrict the flow of information out of the country, may severely limit the benefits of collaborations with research organizations within the PRC.”

One example is China’s Military–Civil Fusion (MCF) programme that integrates civilian and military sectors in technology. The MCF programme was elevated in 2017 when the Central Commission for Military–Civil Fusion Development was established as one of the highest-level government agencies; it is headed by President Xi Jinping (see go.nature.com/467c3sf ). The MCF programme is of paramount concern for US national security, and it presents a vexing dilemma to those in the US scientific community who advocate openness and collaboration.

Collaborations in a geopolitical age

The JASON report acknowledges that the evolving global environment necessitates new research security approaches, noting that advanced military technology increasingly emerges from the civilian sector. It proposes a risk mitigation process tailored to individual projects rather than imposing broad controls on fundamental research that is deemed sensitive. In this geopolitical age, how to strike the right balance between open science and national security interests is extremely challenging 2 , 3 . Here are four further considerations.

First, in the past decade the United States has moved towards applied research, which is partly behind calls to curtail the number of Chinese students on US university campuses. Originally conceived as the Endless Frontier Act — a visionary and bold approach based on the idea of competition rather than exclusion — the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act signals a shift in R&D priorities, a move towards emphasizing applied over fundamental research.

Both expansive and exclusionary, the CHIPS and Science Act has increased investments in specified areas to reduce reliance on foreign supply chains, particularly from China, carving out an exclusion zone of collaborations with that country. In the future, in the name of safeguarding research security, more research topics might move from university labs to national labs, creating more zones of exclusion. National research labs require security clearances, a hurdle that foreign researchers cannot overcome.

The JASON report recommends that funding programmes train more Americans to conduct research in sensitive areas. Although it is laudable to cultivate supplies of domestic talent, in the foreseeable future the domestic pipeline is unlikely to make up for the losses if students from China are cut out. Chinese students have a high level of participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and China has a vast scientific workforce. In 2020, 3.6 million students in China graduated in STEM fields, more than quadruple the United States’ 820,000 students (see go.nature.com/3w4k3zx ).

China leads the way in environmental sciences and clean technologies. Credit: Yang Zhili/VCG/Getty

Also, science and technology are becoming more demanding in terms of human capital. To achieve Moore’s Law — the doubling of the number of components in electronic circuits every two years — requires 18 times as many researchers as it did in the early 1970s 4 . Reallocating US personnel to sensitive areas of research will leave fewer people available to advance other fields.

In this sense, recognizing and protecting sensitive research can be reframed as a call for preserving and even expanding collaborations, including with China. To classify more research areas while curtailing collaborations is a self-defeating proposition. Without infusions of and alliances with foreign talents, US scientists will end up pitching research areas against each other. National progress will slow and narrow.

Second, a widely recognized risk of scientific exchange is dual-use technologies, which can be applied to both civilian and military purposes. Such technologies are subject to export controls.

But there is another kind of duality, which refers to the cross-national incidence of benefits. A cancer drug, wherever invented, is beneficial to people in China and in the United States. China is advanced in Earth and environmental sciences, especially in green energy and pollution control, highlighted by its leading position in these areas in the Nature Index, ahead of the United States (see Nature https://doi.org/m8pz; 2023 ). Therefore, US national security is served well if Chinese inventions help people in the United States and lead to solutions to climate change.

Third, collaborations with Chinese scientists offer a greater advantage to advancing knowledge because China is a scientific powerhouse. According to the Nature Index, in 2022 China had the highest output of research articles for natural sciences, surpassing the United States for the first time (see Nature https://doi.org/k86t; 2023 ). China is particularly strong in the physical sciences . Data compiled from the Web of Science by The Economist magazine show that China leads the European Union and the United States in materials science, chemistry and engineering (see go.nature.com/3wecdlb ).

But from a national security perspective, it can be legitimately argued that China’s scientific prowess poses a greater potential threat to the United States, especially because the physical and engineering sciences are closely connected to military capabilities.

There is no easy answer to this conundrum of the double-edged nature of China’s capabilities, except to note that whether or not US scientists collaborate with China does not change the fact that the country has pulled ahead in certain areas of science and technology. And in a best-case scenario, collaborations might help to narrow the gap.

Fourth, collaboration around science and technology can be a conduit for rebuilding some of the trust that has been lost between the two countries. During the cold war, scientists played a crucial part in stabilizing relations between the Soviet Union and the United States by advocating for arms control, promoting scientific diplomacy and fostering mutual understanding. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, initiated in 1957, brought together scientists from those two countries and provided a neutral platform for dialogue, an accomplishment recognized by the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize.

China and California are leading the way on climate cooperation. Others should follow

Even in the immediate aftermath of Sputnik, however, the Soviet Union and the United States did not cut all collaborations. The 1958 Lacy–Zarubin Agreement, a cultural exchange agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, aided the movement and collaboration of students and scholars. And in the 1960s and 1970s, the two countries worked together on smallpox eradication, under the World Health Organization, a project that brought long-lasting benefits to humankind.

Similar dialogues and channels of communication are needed between the United States and China today. There is a natural affinity between scientists of the two countries, because of past collaborations, relationship ties and family connections. Even though China has edged closer to Russia in its foreign policy, that doesn’t necessarily apply to Chinese scientists. Scientists from both countries share more common ground than the stark differences between their political systems suggest.

Researchers are well equipped to conduct people-to-people diplomacy across different cultures and political systems. Worldwide, they speak the same language — of mathematics, logic and evidence. Although the Chinese political system imposes increasingly strict controls on social-science research, it has granted researchers almost unfettered freedom in STEM research.

In 2013, nine Chinese universities, and a number of foreign organizations, issued the Hefei Statement on the Ten Characteristics of Contemporary Research Universities — a manifesto of Chinese aspirations to make their universities world-class in education and research. The signatories affirmed “the responsible exercise of academic freedom” and “a research culture based on open inquiry” (see go.nature.com/4d18xsz ). Support is evident from the top. One of the signatories, Chen Jining, who was then president of Tsinghua University in Beijing, is now a member of the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

In this age of heightened geopolitical tensions, scientists should not be mere bystanders; they should leverage their personal and professional connections to promote dialogue and understanding. US–China relations are too important to be left entirely to the politicians. My call to action is to preserve China–US collaborations by proposing concrete ideas and plans rather than just defending fundamental research as a first principle. Let me end this commentary with two further ideas.

First, scientists from both countries should get more involved in discussions on artificial intelligence (AI) in a neutral, third-party location. For example, during the cold war, Vienna was the home of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, where Soviet and US scientists discussed mathematics, energy, food and environmental problems. A similar initiative can be launched today.

AI is close to what economists call a general-purpose technology. It is widely used to conduct scientific research, making it both a research topic and a technology for doing science. Without reaching a common understanding on the rules and conduct of AI, collaborations across the board will be impaired.

Second, the academic community might have to brace for the lapse of the STA. Alternative mechanisms will be needed in its absence. One idea is to shift to a more defined and organized approach, similar to the joint project on smallpox during the cold war, in which topics and research areas are mutually agreed and supervised by the two governments.

Collaborations in this age of geopolitics need to ensure two kinds of safety: for the nations and for the participating researchers. This curated approach will lead to some losses of autonomy and scale of research. It is not a method of choice but one of necessity, and a second-best alternative in this time of tensions and distrust.

Nature 631 , 736-739 (2024)

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Can the US and China get along? Experts at Xiangshan Forum suggest more bilateral talks

BEIJING - Creating a joint committee of scholars, former government officials and members of civil society from the US and China could be one way to rebuild trust between the two superpowers, whose ties have been strained in recent years.

This was a suggestion by Professor Wu Xinbo, an expert on US-China relations, during a panel discussion at the 11th Xiangshan Forum – a high-level security conference – in Beijing on Sept 13.

The committee could meet every few months, review what each side has done to reduce and contribute to the risk of conflict between the two countries and make recommendations to each government, he said.

“This is tactical but very pragmatic given the current political situation in both countries,” said Prof Wu, who is the dean of the Institute for International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“We cannot just rely on the two governments to solve the problem. We need to mobilise the positive forces from the two societies to work on this common goal,” he told a packed room of academics, military officers and journalists.

The discussion titled, “The Right Way for China and the US to Get Along”, was among the most well-attended at the three-day Xiangshan Forum, a high-level international security forum similar to Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue.

The forum, which ends on Sept 14, has drawn more than 500 participants from official delegations in 2024, including defence ministers and military chiefs.

The US-China relationship is often described as the world’s most important bilateral relationship, given its significant impact on issues ranging from Taiwan to the Russia-Ukraine war and climate change.

Since the middle of 2023, high-level exchanges have taken place regularly as both countries seek to stabilise ties. In August, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing for strategic talks.

Other panellists who spoke at the Xiangshan discussion also raised similar suggestions for non-official dialogue.

Dr Sarah Tzinieris, a research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London in Britain, said engagement could be done through Track 2 dialogue, or backchannel diplomacy.

“The advantage of this approach is to be able to get the two sides behind closed doors to thrash out such tricky and difficult discussions,” she said, adding that this method was helpful during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the early 2000s.

Can both countries cooperate on issues of global concern, such as pandemics and climate change, without first achieving consensus over political issues?

Beijing has said that the US view of China as a competitor is not conducive to strengthening relations, arguing that it leads to policies that contain China’s development, such as export restrictions on semiconductor technology.

Prof Wu said both countries can still make “tactical” moves to strengthen cooperation, as long as both sides want to reduce the risk of conflicts.

Yet, tensions remain not far from the surface regarding what more China could do on global conflicts and China’s intentions for its military, which has modernised rapidly since the 1990s.

Professor Da Wei from Tsinghua University, the moderator, asked China foreign policy expert Carice Witte what the US and China could do together for the Palestinian issue.

Ms Witte, founder and executive director of the Sino-Israel Global Network and Academic Leadership, said China could work with the US to rein in Iran.

“I think China’s understanding of the Middle East is very much informed by its competition with the US and by its interests in promoting its relations with the Global South,” she said.

“And therefore bringing about cooperation between the US and China in this conflict is in conflict with China’s interests. So I don’t know if there is too much room for that.”

An audience member, who identified herself as a research fellow from the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, a research institute under the Chinese military, asked why the US has stopped publishing online its latest versions of defence papers, which guide how US forces fight.

Mr Chad Sbragia, a research staff member at the Institute for Defence Analyses and former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, noted that China has not published its defence White Paper since 2019. It used to be released every two years.

He said it was important to have transparency but noted the lack of transparency on the part of China’s military.

“As the Chinese say, the forbearance has limits – and the transparency has limits too,” he said.

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Commentary | Lyle Goldstein: What can the US do to stabilize its relationship with China?

As the fifth meeting between Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the last two years, the visit at least shows that diplomatic channels are open. The selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz, a qualified China hand, as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, moreover, seems to offer more evidence that Democrats now understand the stakes in this most pivotal bilateral relationship.

This has not always been the case. Many China watchers had the initial hope that the Biden administration would set the bilateral relationship on a more steady, predictable path after the volatile Donald Trump years when U.S.-China relations seemed to careen from crisis to crisis . However, they were substantially disappointed by the Biden administration’s first foray into China diplomacy when an early, high-level summit meeting in 2021 seemed to devolve into an acrimonious shouting match.  More concretely, the Biden administration has seemingly chosen to adopt many of the hardline policies of its predecessor. The wide-ranging tariffs on Chinese exports have been maintained . Likewise, bellicose policies toward Beijing have continued to be pervasive in Biden’s Pentagon with a full embrace of Trump’s policies of “Great Power Competition” and also the “Indo-Pacific Strategy.”

To be sure, one of the major aggravating issues now in U.S.-China relations is the new global strategic environment resulting from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Although Beijing professes neutrality and has not sent arms to Russia, Chinese diplomats still evince substantial sympathy for the Kremlin and the Biden administration has dubbed China as the foremost “enabler” of the war since its ballooning trade with Russia helps to oil Moscow’s war machine.

Washington has just levied new sanctions against Chinese companies due to their ongoing relationship with Russian entities involved in the war effort. Despite such pressures, the U.S. and China still managed to achieve well over half a trillion in bilateral trade during 2023. Yet, the present administration has rebranded the “decoupling” policy as “de-risking” and acted to define major new limits on U.S.-China commercial contacts, especially in the domain of high-tech. In particular, the CHIPS Act could be Biden’s most important legacy for China policy in that it sought to hinder the ability of Beijing’s corporations to fabricate advanced microchips.

With respect to the volatile issue of Taiwan, the situation evinces ever more tendencies toward escalation and even spinning out of control. Hope for a more balanced approach resting on “guardrails,” were dashed when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, setting off large-scale Chinese military exercises around the island. The new pervasiveness of drone weapons (an area of Chinese military strength), as well as Beijing’s willingness  to pressure Taiwan suggest that the Taiwan issue could experience even more instability in the near future. President Biden has said no less than four times that he would defend Taiwan. But these brazen assertions, a departure from Washington’s traditional policy of “strategic ambiguity,” come against the backdrop of Beijing’s rapid buildup of both its navy and its nuclear forces .  Are the two superpowers careening toward a direct military conflict?

Daniel DePetris: Are tensions in the South China Sea at risk of explosion?

While the Biden administration is to be commended for keeping direct and high-level lines of communication open with Beijing, including with the latest Sullivan visit, the current administration has quite clearly failed to stabilize the superpower relationship in any fundamental way. Looking toward a new administration in Washington in 2025, some pragmatic steps are required to put U.S.-China relations back on track to steer it away from the militarized rivalry now so entrenched and to diminish the growing chances of catastrophic war.

Above all, Washington should embrace realism and restraint by signaling a return to “strategic ambiguity” and much stricter conformity with the “one China policy” first skillfully developed by Richard Nixon’s administration to extricate the U.S. from the Chinese Civil War. Moreover, Washington should douse regional tensions by resisting the temptation to pour ever more U.S. military forces into the western Pacific, for example, into the Philippines where the U.S. is quite provocatively upgrading bases closest to the Taiwan Strait.

Regarding the Ukraine war, the U.S. should reform its accusatory approach toward Beijing and it may have to even agree that China could play a useful role as a mediator — a role Kyiv seems to have recognized recently. Policy innovation will be required to try to stabilize the new U.S.-China race in nuclear weapons development, and this should include full consideration of Beijing’s proposals. Finally, high-tech will remain a problem area, but there is no reason not to move forward more robustly in other areas of commercial promise, from agriculture to infrastructure.

A Chinese analysis on the eve of the Sullivan visit raised the interesting point that this visit might constitute the U.S. national security adviser’s first-ever official trip to China. This points to a problematic issue. Like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Sullivan’s background suggests little acquaintance with the Asia-Pacific region and a traditional focus on Europe with some background in the Middle East as well. For more effective U.S. foreign policy in the 21 st century, Washington may have to look for leaders with a much deeper knowledge of Asia.

Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia engagement at Washington think tank Defense Priorities.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected] .

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On September 12, 2024, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng delivered a keynote speech at the Vision China event. He emphasized that for China and the US, mutual respect and mutual trust are the foundation for dialogue as equals.

Ambassador Xie said that from the first days of contact, China and the US chose to seek harmony and common ground while acknowledging differences. The Shanghai Communiqué established the basic guiding principles, stating that “the social systems and foreign policies of China and the U.S. differ fundamentally. However, both sides agreed that regardless of social systems, all countries should handle their relations based on respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.”

For the two countries to engage with each other, the “position of strength”approach is not the correct way. Instead, equality and mutual respect are the right way forward: China and the US must respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, social system and path of development, and acknowledge differences in history, culture, and national realities.