“Sino-American relations” on The Daily Caller

An observer seeking signs that the U.S. and China have had difficulty playing nicely with one another would only have to listen to the words used by President Obama and President Hu Jintao at the official start of the Chinese premier’s state visit to Washington Wednesday morning. (more)

The arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington Tuesday evening brought the U.S. face to face with the leader whose nation many Americans believe will supplant them as the world’s most dominant super power. (more)

Is there a new Cold War developing between China and the United States? That’s a question hovering over President Hu Jintao and his entourage as they come to Washington to discuss military, trade, and financial flash points with the Obama administration. (more)

Henry Kissinger’s January 13, 2010, column in the Washington Post, “Avoiding a U.S.-China cold war,” lays out the former secretary of state’s vision for the future of U.S.-China relations on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States. In classic Kissinger style, he offers a geo-strategic vision for how the world’s two dominant powers of the 21st century should get along. “The aim should be to create a tradition of respect and cooperation so that the successors of the leaders meeting now continue to see it in their interest to build an emerging world order as a joint enterprise.” A lofty goal, to be sure, but is building a new world order with China as a joint enterprise in America’s best interests? (more)

In his October 20th “Inside the Ring” column, Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports on the current China-policy debate within the Obama administration. He identifies two opposing groups — the “kowtow” group and the “sad-and-disappointed” group. Twenty-five years ago we called them the “convert-them-to-Christianity-and-democracy” group and the “let’s-just-outsmart-them” group. The U.S. players in the perennial China-policy debate change as administrations come and go, but the fundamental differences between the two classic approaches to China remain the same. (more)

China has at least $2.5 trillion in foreign exchange and must, due to its own balance of payments rules, invest it all overseas. Most unavoidably goes into American bonds, the only market big enough to absorb it.[1] However, since the beginning of 2005, the PRC has invested almost $200 billion in foreign assets outside bonds. Official Chinese data are unhelpful, but The Heritage Foundation’s China Global Investment Tracker sorts non-bond spending by country and sector. The tracker is current through June 30, 2010. (more)

China’s on-again-off-again approach to U.S-China military interaction and Beijing’s refusal to allow Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to visit China during his recent Asian trip reveals a dysfunctional military relationship that’s the result of much more than Beijing’s displeasure over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. It reflects fundamentally different national strategic objectives and the changing locus of leverage that result from China’s growing power and influence relative to the U.S. (more)

While the U.S. remains involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, East Asia contains the seeds of potentially bigger conflicts. China holds the key to maintaining regional peace. (more)

The latest session of the U.S.-China bilateral human rights dialogue is taking place in Washington this week, the first such meeting since May 2008. These sporadic, formulaic meetings long ceased to be useful in addressing China’s most serious human rights offenses. They have degenerated into surreal exchanges that give equal time and weight to Chinese critiques of America’s human rights “problems” and Chinese filibusters on the “progress” China is making in developing the “rule of law.” There is little reason to expect this upcoming dialogue will see any improvement, particularly given the low priority that the Obama administration has placed on human rights issues in the larger context of the U.S.-China relationship. The Obama team is anyway looking ahead to the “more important” Strategic and Economic Dialogue that is scheduled to take place in Beijing later this month. (more)

Despite the diplomatically cordial meeting between the US and Chinese leaders and China’s likely decision to modify its currency, political pressure in Congress, and other quarters, for a more aggressive China policy is mounting. Beyond currency manipulation, various other issues continue to generate fierce debate on the increasingly complex and troubled U.S.-China relationship. (more)

BEIJING — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner met with a Chinese vice premier on Thursday and discussed economic ties in a sign the two sides might be trying to cool their rhetoric in a dispute over China’s currency controls. (more)

Australians are increasingly uneasy about both China and the United States, although for very different reasons. That dual uneasiness is creating an incentive for Canberra to hedge its bets and become, ever so quietly, more independent regarding security issues and capabilities. That is a development Washington should encourage rather than discourage. (more)

Another round of navel-gazing about China’s “new” assertiveness and how the United States should respond to it is under way. (more)

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