Prospects and outlook

This seems to be the broad outlines of the Obama administration's strategic and security agenda with China. To be sure, there are many more issues on the US agenda (China has its own agenda) - including the valuation of China's currency, the trade deficit, nonproliferation, intellectual property rights, human rights, Tibet, Darfur and Myanmar.

It is a crowded agenda. One challenge for the new administration will be to prioritize the issues on the agenda, although all of them must be pursued simultaneously.

In addition to the question of prioritization, there is also the issue of institutionalization. That is, these multiple issues on the bilateral agenda may be better pursued through a combination of (1) establishing institutionalized working groups that communicate regularly and meet periodically, and (2) high-level meetings at the ministerial, vice-presidential and presidential levels. The latter will energize the former.

Too often in the past, the two sides have had high-level meetings without setting up institutionalized working groups. Both sides like to claim that there exist more than 60 bilateral dialogue mechanisms, but these are episodic and not regular. The relationship needs, I believe, a deeper degree of institutionalization through the establishment of bilateral ministerial working groups.

On some issues, when warranted, such working groups can involve other nations and regions (Japan, Russia or the European Union, for example), but the core would be Sino-US. This will perhaps give the appearance of a "G-2," but in reality China already has such working group mechanisms with the EU and a number of countries. The virtue of this approach is that it would institutionalize cooperation and infuse the bureaucracies of the countries with positive missions.

Sino-US ties have a great opportunity. The Obama administration inherits not only from the Bush administration a basically well-functioning, positive and cooperative relationship, but also a considerable bipartisan consensus in Congress and the public.

Moreover, the chronic problem of the Taiwan question is at low ebb and East Asia is at peace (notwithstanding the DPRK nuclear problem), thus clearing the path for both sides to focus on regional and global cooperation. To be sure, the Taiwan question remains potent and as long as the arms sales issue hangs over the relationship (thus suspending military exchanges) bilateral ties will not be fully normalized. Japan also harbors concerns (that will have to be assuaged) about the emerging Sino-US global partnership, of which it is not a part.

There remains a good deal of residual strategic suspicion in the US and China's militaries and national security establishments, including the intelligence and counterintelligence communities. But this strategic suspicion can be ameliorated by resuming military exchanges and forging cooperation in other realms. Cooperation can be contagious. Cooperation forged in the diplomatic and economic realms can positively "spill over" into the national security domain.

By signaling to Beijing that Washington seeks just such a global, cooperative, and comprehensive partnership, Clinton has started off in the right way and has set an appropriate tone for the relationship. Her broadening of the strategic agenda is also appropriate, although the Chinese side will be pressed to formulate detailed policy positions in these new areas.

In sum, there is perhaps no more important relationship for the Obama administration to manage simply because China is now a global player in so many areas, and as such Washington's and Beijing's interests and equities coincide. The task at hand will be to cooperate to a maximum extent, minimize competition, and avoid conflict.

The author is professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University. He is also a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

(China Daily May 6, 2009)