The China Challenge

Making Progress

Meetings in Beijing in December 2006 brought together representatives of then US president George W. Bush and then Chinese president Hu Jintao, and launched the first Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) between the two powers. These meetings clarified the vectors influencing US-China relations and set the context for the US to take a continuing pragmatic approach. America encouraged China’s continued economic growth and offered to be of assistance.

Today, international relations “realists” and so-called “neoconservatives” tend to see ongoing US-China relations as a zero-sum game, believing a major democracy like the US should never strengthen rival powers.

Some theorists within China caution that their nation should not adopt or join Western systems or entities. They fear subjugation, and they frame US policy toward China as a plan to prevent China’s development. They view US humanitarian efforts elsewhere in the world as indirect power grabs. The Chinese media tend to portray US policy toward China as a scheme to surround, “split” or “westernize” China. The term “westernize” harkens back to the 19th century, when Great Britain won the Opium War...