Does Hu Jintao’s Visit to the U.S. Show If the U.S.-China Relationship Has “Leveled Up”?

Chinese Premier Hu Jintao will visit the U.S. Jan. 18-22. His visit to the United States of America will gather the attention of many parties in the world.

The U.S.-China relationship is seen as the 21st century’s most important bilateral relationship. Hu Jintao’s visit to the U.S. will have a large impact on the future of U.S.-China relations. Is this an opportunity or a challenge? Does his visit level up the relationship or present a setback? What path will this relationship take in the future?

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s invitation to President Richard Nixon to visit China. His visit has been seen as a turning point in U.S.-China relations, as not long afterward, the PRC and the U.S. — the world’s major powers of the East and West — established formal diplomatic relations.

In the first 10 years of establishing diplomatic relations, China, by means of Deng Xiaoping’s wind of reform, was the largest beneficiary in the economic arena. Some scholars call this period the U.S.-China honeymoon. After the end of the Cold War, China and the U.S. maintained the duality of a relationship that was neither friendly nor hostile, neither confrontational nor collaborative.

Even though many differences exist between China and the U.S., there are also constants. China and the U.S. are each other’s main trading partners, and they have the same interests when it comes to fighting terrorism and preventing nuclear proliferation.

The uninhibited rise and fall of the two countries’ relations reminds the author of the 1962 Shanghai Animation Film Studio-produced artistic film, “Absentminded and Unhappy.” As soon as the U.S. gets “absentminded,” China will be “unhappy.”

High Start, Low Finish

From November 2009, when President Obama first visited China, to December’s Copenhagen Climate Conference, to the American government preparing to sell Taiwan Patriot missiles, to Google pulling out of China in a dispute over Internet freedom, and to the U.S., Japan and Korea rejecting China’s proposal of unconditionally launching six-party talks at a Foreign Ministers’ meeting, 2010 can be considered the year of the wild ride in U.S.-China relations.

Core Issues

Chinese officials have always declared that the question of Taiwan is the core issue of U.S.-China relations, as well as the foundation of U.S.-China diplomatic relations. U.S. officials have publicly pledged to maintain its “One China” policy, while at the same time following its domestic “Taiwan Relations Act,” exporting large quantities of defensive military weapons to Taiwan for use in defending against a mainland invasion, even spreading them as far as the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. Security in East Asian seas, freedom of aircraft carriers and navigation, and whether or not to fight over new issues of “spheres of influence” have all become new, expanding cracks in the U.S.-China relationship.

International Cooperation

U.S.-China “international cooperation” includes such issues as climate change and global financial reform, as well as issues in international relations, such as those surrounding Iran and North Korea’s nuclear activity.

China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has veto power over any proposal. The only issues where China can adopt any actions on “important international and regional issues” are the Iran and North Korea nuclear issues.

Because of China’s opening and reform, its economic rise, and its increasing political power, China is gradually toughening its attitude toward the U.S., which does not behoove cooperation between the two nations. In the words of a Chinese netizen in Germany, Xie Shengyou, “How is China an adversary to the U.S.?”

There are two factors that have influenced the change in nature of the two countries’ relationship: One is China’s politics and economic development; the second is the U.S.’ position as a superpower. If China’s economic development causes democratization, the strategic relationship between the U.S. and China will change.

The author believes that whether or not Hu Jintao’s current visit “levels up” U.S.-China relations, the future relationship will still have more cooperation than conflict and more common interests than differences. We just have to consider that there’s a “fly in the ointment!”