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JUNE 24, 2015

How to Save the U.S.-China Relationship

BY
EVAN
OSNOS

Xi Jinping and Barack Obama in Beijing, in

November, 2014.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY WONG/AP

he name conjures an image of such stately

dullness that it would drive an adman to
despair: the Seventh Round of the U.S.-China
Strategic and Economic Dialogue. But Chinese and
American ofcials now meeting at the State Department, for two days of talks that
began on Tuesday, have the task of preventing the worlds most important relationship
from drifting to what both sides increasingly acknowledge is a dangerous level of
distrust.
More than four decades after Nixon met Mao, the relationship between the U.S. and
China has reached a pivotal moment. To date, even as China has become more
powerful and present in our lives, Americans have generally found it to be an
unsatisfying enemy. For most of the past decade, the number of Americans who
reported having a favorable view of China hovered around fty per cent, according to
the Pew Research Center
(http://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/1/country/45/). But, in the past three
years, the favorable number has declined to thirty-ve per cent, and the unfavorable
has risen to fty-four per cent. In China, favorable views of the U.S. are at a similar
level, around fty per centneither rmly in favor nor opposed.
Viewed one way, relations between the worlds two most powerful countries, the U.S.
and China, should be a rare point of calm in a world aame, from Syria to Ukraine.
The Chinese and American economies have never been more interdependent: in the
past six years, rich Chinese companies and plutocrats have increased direct
investment (http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-dialogue-pays-dividends1434922739) in the U.S. vefold, spurring the creation of new jobs and surpassing
(http://rhg.com/notes/new-realities-in-the-us-china-investment-relationship), for the
rst time, the amount that Americans invest in China. Moreover, one of Capitol Hills
longtime concernsthat China was suppressing the value of its currency in order to
make its exports cheaper than its rivalshas been resolved; the yuan is no longer
undervalued, according to the International Monetary Fund. (The Chinese government
has allowed it to appreciate, in order to curb ination at home and encourage the use
of the yuan as a global currency.) Even the old fears about China holding a mountain
of U.S. debt have eroded, as the U.S. Federal Reserve has amassed a larger share of
U.S. treasuries and China has reduced its holdings. Earlier this year, Japan

(http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/28e83252-e38c-11e4-b40700144feab7de.html#axzz3dism80Hr) nally surpassed China as the largest foreign

holder of U.S. debt.
And yet phlegmatic specialists on both sides talk of a pall descendinga strategic
anxiety shaped by the concern that the U.S. and China are talking past one another.
The tipping point is near, David Lampton
(http://www.uscnpm.org/blog/2015/05/11/a-tipping-point-in-u-s-china-relations-isupon-us-part-i/), a China scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at
Johns Hopkins, said last month. Our respective fears are nearer to outweighing our
hopes than at any time since normalization, he said. To avoid confrontation, he said,
Washington must rethink its objective of primacy and China must recalibrate its own
sense of strength. For their part, Chinese ofcials and strategists are increasingly
agitated about the Obama Administrations rebalancing to Asia. After an American
reconnaissance plane ew near a man-made island under construction by a Chinese
crew, Fu Ying (http://www.hufngtonpost.com/fu-ying/china-us-relationsfuture_b_7540932.html), Chinas Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, wrote that, U.S.
behavior on this matter is like a amboyant eagle which has own into a china shop.
The irritants are clear, beginning with cyber-espionage. Both sides engage in it, but
the reach and agrancy of Chinas efforts have turned it into a political issue. Earlier
this month, U.S. ofcials said they suspected (but have not formally accused) Chinese
hackers of engineering one of the largest thefts of data in government history. In that
breach, security clearances and personal information related to as many as eighteen
million current, former, and prospective federal employees were taken from the Ofce
of Personnel Management. (China denies any involvement.) American ofcials
acknowledge that the data was embarrassingly underprotected, but they also worry
that a foreign government is accumulating personal information that could be used to
cause havoc in the event of a future conict. It is prime fodder for the upcoming
campaign season, when we should expect American candidates to replace old talk of
China controlling our debt with warnings of China controlling our data.
Other once-marginal issues have snapped into focus for the American public. For
years, China has asserted a claim to a larger share of the South China Sea, but in April
that esoteric argument became front-page news: satellite images revealed what
became known as a Chinese island factory, a network of ships and builders
constructing two thousand acres of man-made islands out of previously uninhabited
reefs and atolls. Though the islands have little immediate military value, they have
galvanized those in Washington who want the U.S. to maintain its role policing the
waterway, which is central to global commerce. Similarly, concerns about protecting
human rights used to be the province of advocacy organizations, but recently a
proposed law on foreign N.G.O.s has drawn complaints from traditionally stalwart
supporters of engagement, including Western foundations, universities, and business
groups. They have expressed serious concerns
(http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/us-china-ngosidUSKBN0OH2I720150601) that the law could, for instance, impair exchanges as

routine as volunteer medical visits and American professors lecturing at Chinese

universities. (A major American N.G.O. said it is facing a multi-layered death by
bureaucracy.)
The United States has also done its share to contribute to the distrust. Last year,
Beijing launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, an alternative to the
World Bank and other U.S.-dominated international nancial institutions. Washington
urged its allies to shun the bank until its rules became clearer, but Britain and other
countries joined anywaya miserable result that left the U.S. looking weak and likely
strengthened the position of Chinese hawks. They push the argument, described in a
Communist Party document (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3055b448-e426-11e49039-00144feab7de.html#axzz3dism80Hr) last year, that the U.S. has ve objectives:
to isolate, contain, diminish, and divide China, and to sabotage its political leadership.
At its essence, the tension is not about policy disagreements; it is about a historic
change. Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, has called on the U.S. to embrace China in
what he calls a new type of major power relationship. To Kenneth Lieberthal, a
China specialist at the Brookings Institution, that phrase conveys a relationship
between equals, each of whom respects the fact that the other has its own system and
interests. But the U.S. has been reluctant to adopt a slogan intended to alter the status
quo. Lieberthal told me, The U.S. is much more transactional: Do we treat you as an
equal? We dont bully you, and we want to negotiate agreements on both substance
and rules of engagement. And China is thinking, Wait a minute, no, were talking
about respecting us. Were not trying to overthrow the American system of
governance, so why is it that you pay what we do so little respect?
Stopping the erosion of goodwill will rest on unglamorous talks like those going on at
the State Department nowthe nal major negotiations before Xi makes his rst state
visit to Washington in September. The U.S. and China have well-known areas of
common interest: a treaty to lower investment hurdles to each others economies, the
Iran nuclear talks, forging peace in Afghanistan, and, most of all, reducing
greenhouse-gas emissions. But those are not enough. Insuring peace will mean giving
something up. Lampton, of Johns Hopkins, argues that each side can afford to make a
signicant compromise: the U.S. must acknowledge Chinas legitimate aspirations
for a voice in the international system, and Beijing should take some maritime
disputes off the table.
The U.S. must differentiate between controversial assertions of power, like those in
the South China Sea, and fair reections of Chinas growing contribution to the world,
such as the new banks. Likewise, China cannot afford to pretend that the world is
unrufed by the profound, if inevitable, change it has introduced in the international
order. For both parties, a willful focus on the strengths risks underplaying the
weaknesses in their respective positions.

Even after four decades, American ofcials are sometimes startled when Chinese
counterparts pose basic questions about American governance. A senior ofcial told
me recently, That clearly expresses a kind of curiosity, along the lines of, How does
it really work here? Which you can read as a heartening curiosity about the other guy,
and what that means for the possibility of interactions down the road. But, he added,
Its also frightening, given the possibility of conict. We are entering a more
dangerous era, in which neither side can afford to misread the other.

Evan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008, and
covers politics and foreign affairs.