By Shannon Tiezzi
Ahead of this year’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the U.S. and China are trying to stay positive.
It’s been a rough year so far for U.S.-China relations. In the early months of 2014, the U.S. and China were still dealing with the fall-out from China’s decision to establish an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, and from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s controversial visit to the Yasukuni Shrine (which prompted complaints from China that the U.S. should do more to rein in its ally). Since then, the U.S. indictment of PLA officers for cyber-espionage and U.S. support for Japan’s defense reforms have irked China. Washington, for its part, has sharply criticized what it sees as Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and in cyberspace.
With so many points of friction attracting so much vocal attention from Beijing and Washington, one veteran China hand told me he was more pessimistic about the future of U.S.-China relations now than he had been since Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. All in all, the dream of a “new type great power relationship” between the U.S. and China seems much less achievable than it did last year, in the immediate aftermath of Obama and Xi’s informal summit in California.
Tensions have been bad enough recently to spill over into high-level diplomatic meetings, which are usually restricted to bland platitudes. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel traded barbs with Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan in Beijing. Later, at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Chinese Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong had more pointed words for Hagel and Abe as he refuted their criticisms of China. With another round of high-level meetings looming, this year’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), both China and the U.S. are trying to set up a more conciliatory atmosphere.
Read the full story at The Diplomat