US-China relations need a reset before we all end up paying a heavy price
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The year 1979 was a pivotal one in Sino-American relations. On a historic visit to the US, Deng Xiaoping, China’s paramount leader, met with US President Jimmy Carter at the White House and attended the Round-Up Rodeo in Simonton, Texas, where he donned a ten-gallon hat and charmed the crowd.
And, reflecting the rapid normalization of bilateral relations over the course of the decade, the two countries signed the US-China Science and Technology Agreement, which provided a framework for regulating technology, exchanging scientists, scholars, and students and developing joint projects. Now, 45 years later, that historic agreement has been allowed to lapse, a casualty of an American presidential-election year and heightened US-China tensions. And this breakdown comes on top of US tariffs on imports from China, prohibitions on exports of advanced technologies to the country, and, most recently, the addition of 42 Chinese firms to a trade restriction list for supplying the Russian military.
Economic relations between the US and China have never been worse. The implications are profound, because several of the world’s most pressing economic problems can be solved only with contributions from both countries. And, to address global challenges, active cooperation between the two economic powers is indispensable.
That said, there are at least a few faint glimmers of hope. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s trip to Beijing in August—the first by a national security advisor since 2016—created the possibility of a constructive dialogue between American President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. More consequentially, the next US administration may better appreciate the need for
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