Getting to grips with problems
- By Yuan Zheng
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 16, 2013
However, China and the US have different positions in the international system and differences remain over a number of issues. Even though there might be principled consensus on some issues, the two countries still have difficulty seeing eye-to-eye on Taiwan, the disputes in the South China Sea, and even the Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions.
The two countries are also at odds over market access, the yuan's exchange rate and high-tech exports. Over the past four years, the Obama administration has proposed on several occasions to relax restrictions on high-tech exports to China, but it has not taken any substantive initiatives. During the dialogue, the US pledged to give fair treatment to China in its export control reform.
During the talks, the two countries also agreed to enhance the military-to-military relationship and decided to actively explore a notification mechanism for major military activities.
The revelations of the US' cyber espionage by whistleblower Edward Snowden have brought cybersecu-rity issues into focus. But while China is refraining from criticizing the US for extensive syping, the US has focused on so-called intellectual property theft rather than reflecting on its own actions.
With the deepening of China-US cooperation, there will be more problems and new challenges confronting both sides. Yet as long as Beijing and Washington strive to control differences, avoid misjudgment, and expand common interests through dialogue, bilateral relations will be able to overcome the numerous difficulties and develop in a pragmatic and rational manner.
The coming decade is crucial for the development of China-US relations, but considering their complexity it is unreasonable to expect one round of dialogue to solve all the problems that exist.
However, as long as the US and China can view bilateral relations from a strategic perspective, and seek to expand their common ground by working on specific issues, they will be able to avoid any misjudgments and control their differences, and in so doing they will make a major breakthrough in relations between a rising power and the established power.
This will, of course, be slow and tortuous, requiring both countries to show wisdom and patience.
The author is a researcher with the Institute of American Studies, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
