Two Way Street

At a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, it comes as little surprise that a new and important book on the bilateral relations, published by a think tank affiliated with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, should have the foreboding...

In her recent article, “What China’s Lack of Transparency Means for U.S. Policy,” U.S.-China relations expert Susan Shirk caused a stir when she argued that China’s “lack of transparency” around public policy making, defense, national security, and...

Washington refuses to accept that though the United States is not in decline, its international influence is not what it was. It is unlikely to regain the leverage it once wielded, because China and so many others now have more than enough economic...

The China-U.S. relationship may be the most complex relationship that has ever existed between two major powers. Ties between China and the United States are deepening, and at every level the interaction between the two countries is marked by both...

I am a political scientist and former diplomat who has studied China for more than forty years, and yet I still can’t answer some of my students’ most basic questions about China’s policy-making process. Where—in which institutional arena and at...

Having followed the progress of the People’s Republic of China for more than half a century, it is disquieting to now find the atmosphere between Americans and Chinese so stubbornly cool. Indeed, in certain key ways there was a greater sense of...

In recent years, a noticeable change has occurred in China-U.S. relations. The “problem areas” where the two countries tend to clash are increasing in both number and scope, and there has been a greater degree of hostility in judgments about the...