Providing their respective hopes and expectations on what they would like to see in the Obama administration’s China policy are Liu Xuecheng and Robert Oxnam, who both envision opportunities for reframing the China-U.S. relationship in a way that will enable the two countries to collectively manage regional and global challenges. To this end, they advocate expanding and strengthening existing high-level dialogue mechanisms such as the Strategic Economic Dialogue, while identifying other strategic areas in which this pivotal bilateral relationship may be utilized for practical solutions to common global concerns. For example, Oxnam suggests that the United States and China develop the world’s first “green relationship” to lead global efforts on climate change issues, which dovetails with the Obama administration’s stated goal to make climate change issues one of its policy priorities. The way ahead in U.S.-China ties, though, will not be without its difficulties—some of them potentially serious and even destabilizing to the relationship. Tensions emerged in the U.S.-China relationship from the first day of Obama’s presidency. Chinese officials were riled first by President Obama’s inauguration speech, which referred to the defeat of communism and criticized governments that suppress dissent, and then by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s accusation of China as a currency manipulator during his confirmation hearings. Liu and Oxnam also recognize that certain potentially divisive issues will need careful attention, such as Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, China’s currency policies, and trade disagreements. Nevertheless, both authors agree on the need to continue developing the U.S.-China relationship from a long-term and strategic perspective in a way that allows both countries to focus on their myriad common concerns while addressing their strategic differences in an honest and constructive manner.
