About the Report

Recent turbulence in U.S.-Chinese relations stems from China’s 

umbrage at what it perceives to be the United States’ attempts 

to harm China’s core interests. Strident rhetoric from within 

China has prescribed retaliatory targeting of alleged U.S. core 

interests. However, U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation 

and stabilize the international financial environment are 

also in China’s own national security interests. A sustainable 

relationship should be based on the pursuit of mutual interests 

in building cooperation between the two countries. In 

addressing these topics, Professor Thomas Christensen presents 

a distinct perspective on U.S.-China relations that emphasizes 

the dangers in interacting in an environment of mistrust and 

polarization. 

This Special Report was written in July 2010. The views 

expressed in it do not necessarily reflect the views of the 

United States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate 

specific policy positions. The USIP's Center for Conflict 

Management commissioned it as part of a series on the 

evolving U.S.-China relationship. This series will focus on 

avoiding crises and exploring opportunities for 

U.S.-China cooperation. 

2301 Constitution Ave., NW • Washington, DC 20037 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 269 April 2011

© 2011 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Thomas J. Christensen

The Need to Pursue 

Mutual Interests in 

U.S.-PRC Relations

Summary

•	 Sino-U.S. cooperation should be based on the pursuit of mutual interests rather than on a 

framework of mutual respect for “core interests,” as pledged in the 2009 Joint Statement. 

•	 There is a perception in Beijing that when China assists the United States with problems 

on the international stage it is doing the United States a favor, and thus it expects returns 

in kind. This is inaccurate since almost everything that the United States asks of China is 

directly in China’s own interest. 

•	 If the Six-Party Talks process fails permanently, many countries, including China and the 

United States, will suffer costs. The biggest losers will be the North Korean people, but 

second will be China, not the United States. 

•	 The Chinese government has been increasingly sensitive to a domestic political environment of heated popular nationalism, expressed in the media and on the blogosphere. China 

suffers from a stunted version of a free press, in which most criticism of government policy 

is from a hawkish, nationalist direction. 

•	 A cooperative U.S.-China relationship should be built around the pursuit of mutual global 

interests. The two countries have worked together successfully on several projects, including antipiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, and there is potential for further cooperation on issues such as climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and counterterrorism, to 

name a few. 

Introduction

After an inaugural year of very smooth U.S.-China relations for the Obama administration, 

2010 began with some turbulence, at least on a rhetorical level. When Washington opted 

to maintain several long-standing U.S. policies on Taiwan’s security, human rights, and 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT

Contents

Why the Strident Chinese Reaction? 3

Why Mutual Respect for Core Interests Is the Wrong

Foundation for U.S.-China Relations 5

Emphasizing Mutual Global Interests over 

Core National Interests 8

Conclusion 9

Continued on page 2
2

freedom of expression, many elite Chinese commentators and official news sites and some 

high-ranking officials suggested that the United States had done severe damage to U.S.-

China relations.1 The administration called for Internet freedom during Google’s dispute 

with the Chinese government over hacking and censorship, notified Congress on the sale of 

a $6.4 billion arms sales package to Taiwan, and arranged for the Dalai Lama to visit with 

President Barack Obama. Many in China seemed surprised and unusually offended by these 

rather standard U.S. policies. 

In articles, academic conferences, and track II dialogues, some Chinese commentators, 

including uniformed military officers, called for sanctions against the United States. The 

critics often cited the Joint Statement that the two governments penned on the occasion 

of President Obama’s first visit to China in November 2009. In particular, they focused on 

two paragraphs in which the two nations pledged to respect each other’s “core interests” 

and each other’s sovereignty.2 As defined by Chinese elites, China’s core interests include 

maintenance of domestic stability (including suppression of dissent) and territorial integrity 

(including prevention of the permanent and legal separation of Taiwan from the mainland, 

and suppression of so-called splittist forces in Tibet). Since, in some Chinese elites’ opinion, 

the Obama administration broke its promise by violating China’s alleged core interests and 

sovereignty in Taiwan and Tibet, as well as its domestic suppression of dissent, it is only logical, they argue, that Beijing should return fire by harming U.S. core national interests. Those 

Chinese elites define those core U.S. interests to include preventing nuclear proliferation in 

Iran and North Korea and stabilizing the international financial environment. For reasons 

outlined below, such a formulation is intellectually incorrect and politically unhelpful.

Chinese commentators who prescribed the retaliatory targeting of alleged U.S. core 

national interests offered various methods. Some suggested that Beijing refuse to buy 

additional U.S. Treasury bonds or, perhaps, sell off a chunk of the many hundreds of billions 

of dollars of such bonds that it now holds, thus slowing or halting the U.S. recovery from the 

financial crisis. Others called for reduced cooperation on international issues that the United 

States considers vital to national security—multilateral nonproliferation efforts aimed at 

preventing North Korea and Iran from developing nuclear arsenals. Some even went so far 

as to say that China should sell weapons to U.S. enemies. Others proposed more targeted 

sanctions on U.S. companies, such as Raytheon and Boeing, that manufacture the weapons 

sold to Taiwan.3

This report will explore how Chinese domestic politics and elite misperceptions about 

international politics led to the harsh rhetoric against the United States and why, in the 

end, Beijing’s top leadership apparently did not adopt the prescribed punitive methods. By 

all reports, the leadership takes seriously the opinions of lower-level cadres and politically 

mobilized segments of the broad public. But it also knows it must protect China’s interests 

on the international stage and cannot react too rashly toward other powers, especially major 

economic partners from whom China has received so many benefits in the reform period 

beginning in 1978.

The report will conclude by presenting an intellectually more accurate and politically 

more sustainable framework for stabilizing and improving U.S.-China relations than the 

concept of respect for each other’s allegedly distinct core interests. More emphasis needs 

to be placed on cooperation in the management of global problems that simultaneously 

challenge the United States, China, and most of the rest of the international community. In 

other words, the pursuit of mutual interests, not mutual respect for allegedly distinct sets of 

national core interests, should be the centerpiece of the relationship. This prescription is 

rooted in a famous speech by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in September 2005, in which he stated that the United States 

called for China to be a “responsible stakeholder” in more proactively helping other states 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

Thomas J. Christensen is professor of politics and 

international affairs and director of the China and the 

World Program at Princeton University. In 2006–08 he 

served as deputy assistant secretary of state for East 

Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for U.S. 

policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. Before 

arriving at Princeton in 2003, he taught at Cornell 

University and MIT. Dr. Christensen has served on the 

board of directors and the executive committee of the 

National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and as 

coeditor of the International History and Politics series 

at Princeton University Press.

Continued from page 1

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor 

of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, 

D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, American 

University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, James R. 

Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. • Kerry 

Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and 

Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. Khan, President, 

Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, Nev. • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of 

Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. • Judy Van Rest, 

Executive Vice President, International Republican Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, 

Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C. 

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
3

manage problems faced by the entire international community, including the United States 

and China.4 The list of such mutual interests is long and includes countering proliferation 

of weapons of mass destruction, protecting freedom of the seas and the free flow of energy 

resources, addressing global warming, and combating international terrorism. 

Something quite akin to the responsible-stakeholder approach stands alongside the 

statements about mutual respect for core interests and sovereignty in the November 2009 

U.S.-China Joint Statement. For reasons outlined below, the former seems a much better 

formulation than the latter for building cooperation and reducing mistrust between the 

two sides and should be emphasized in the future. While seemingly unobjectionable on its 

face, the concept of mutual respect for each other’s core interests mainly served to raise 

unrealistic expectations in some Chinese circles of fundamental changes in U.S. policy on 

Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, and freedom of expression. 

Why the Strident Chinese Reaction?

The policies carried out early in 2010 by the Obama administration toward Internet freedom, 

Taiwan, and the Dalai Lama are laudable, but they are not really new. They sustain decadesold policies that are deeply founded in U.S. legal, moral, and strategic principles. This continuity makes it all the more puzzling that the Chinese reaction in 2010 was so strong.

The promotion of freedom of expression, of human rights, and protection of intellectual 

property are hardly new U.S. ideals, and these were all evident in Secretary of State Hillary 

Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom and the administration’s expression of concern about 

the persistent hacking into the operations of Google China. Previous presidents have met 

the Dalai Lama, usually in private settings and always in his capacity as a religious rather 

than a political leader. The Dalai Lama met with President Obama’s predecessor, George W. 

Bush, during both terms, and the president even presented him personally with a Congressional gold medal in 2007. The United States has long recognized Tibet as part of China, 

and Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China. Washington has, however, urged 

China to allow Tibetans more civil liberties, freedom of religion, and autonomy within the 

PRC. The U.S. government has also called for meaningful dialogue between Beijing and the 

Dalai Lama’s representatives. After all, the Dalai Lama has eschewed Tibetan independence 

as a goal and has rejected violence as a means to achieve Tibetan goals, despite frequent 

accusations in China that he is a “splittist,” who promotes violence and even terrorism for 

the purpose of gaining full independence for Tibet. Thus from a U.S. perspective, there are 

no reasons to avoid, and many reasons to embrace, the idea of presidential meetings with 

the Dalai Lama.

Similarly, the United States has also sold defensive arms to Taiwan on occasion to bolster 

the island’s defenses against coercion or invasion. This policy, codified in the 1979 Taiwan 

Relations Act, has been carried out faithfully by Democrat and Republican administrations 

alike. In fact, just a few months before Obama took office, the Bush administration notified Congress on the intention to sell Taiwan a large tranche of weapons—the second such 

notification in eighteen months. That weapons package was similar in value to what the 

Obama administration presented in early 2010. The United States has made it very clear 

in recent years that such arms sales do not signal support for Taiwan’s independence. Nor 

does Washington oppose unification of Taiwan and the mainland if Beijing is able somehow 

to succeed, through peaceful dialogue, in convincing Taiwan’s democracy that unification 

is in Taiwan’s interest. In fact, the common charge in China that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan 

somehow encourage unilateral moves toward formal, de jure independence by Taiwan is 

clearly refuted by recent facts on the ground. The executive branch has notified Congress 

on approximately $16 billion in arms sales to Taiwan in the past three years, yet cross-Strait 
4

relations have never been better since the founding of the PRC in 1949. Moreover, there is 

no sign that either Taiwan’s current leadership or the Taiwanese public is eager to take provocative actions in the direction of unilateral assertions of permanent, legal independence 

from China.

If these moderate and constructive U.S. policies were not new, neither was the phenomenon of Chinese protest over those policies. There were some similarities between 2010 and 

the few years prior. Taiwan arms sales have been followed by the PRC’s suspension of various 

military-to-military contacts in 2007 and 2008, as they were in 2010. But the rhetorical tone 

of the Chinese government and media response seemed to be harsher and more strident 

in 2010 than in the past. This has been the judgment not only of foreign observers but of 

Chinese experts themselves in dialogues and conversations in which I participated during 

the past year.

So what explains this increased stridency? According to my Chinese interlocutors, purely 

domestic factors explain part of the puzzle. Popular nationalism, growth in the number 

of media outlets in which Chinese citizens can express their views, and the government’s 

increasing sensitivity to public opinion led to a combination of published attacks on the 

United States and, by association, criticism of Beijing’s U.S. policy, including pieces by military officers and scholars in government think tanks and universities calling for a tougher 

policy against the United States.5 Government officials appear nervous about labeling these 

nationalist viewpoints as erroneous, as do more moderate academics. The result is a dangerously stunted version of a free press, in which one may relatively safely criticize government policy, but only from a strident, nationalist direction. We often see articles calling for 

tougher policies, but much more rarely do we find articles that criticize policy for being too 

harsh toward the United States or other great powers, and when such articles appear, they 

sometimes seem so subtle as to be in code.

From the perspective of managing U.S.-China relations, fortunately the problem is not 

rooted entirely in China’s domestic politics. Supplementing and catalyzing these domestic 

forces are international factors—or, to be more accurate, perceptions among elites and the 

attentive public of international factors. According to several of my interlocutors, several 

reasons account for why Chinese observers were particularly upset to see “business as usual” 

in China policy this year from the Obama Administration. First, there is the global financial 

crisis and the perception that China is much stronger compared with the United States now 

than before the crisis. The argument runs that the United States needs China much more 

now than in the past to help manage international economic affairs and, in particular, to 

help the United States by purchasing more Treasury bills to finance Washington’s skyrocketing debt. China’s relatively quick recovery from the crisis, and the U.S. government’s 

perceived need to finance its deficit by selling more Treasury bills give many in China the 

image of a PRC with enormous newfound leverage in Washington. Additional factors signaling U.S. weakness to these observers are the prolonged, expensive, and still unsuccessful 

wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this view, Beijing no longer needs to tolerate U.S. policies 

that violate China’s self-defined “core interests,” as it has in the past.

Finally, according to my interlocutors, there was a perception throughout 2009 that the 

Obama administration was more accommodating toward China than previous administrations, as a matter of either political orientation or simply hardheaded realism that flowed 

from the factors mentioned above. The administration had eschewed arms sales to Taiwan 

in its first year and had avoided a visit from the Dalai Lama before President Obama’s trip 

to China in November. Even before the Joint Statement’s reference to respect for each side’s 

core interests, Deputy Secretary James Steinberg made a much noted speech on Washington’s China policy, in which he called for building mutual trust between the two nations 

through concrete acts of “strategic reassurance” by both sides.6 Some in China apparently 
5

exaggerated the importance of this speech and believed it might be a harbinger of a shift 

in U.S. security policies toward Taiwan and the rest of the region.

Why Mutual Respect for Core Interests Is the Wrong Foundation for 

U.S.-China Relations

To my knowledge, the term “strategic reassurance” has not been used by senior U.S. officials 

since Steinberg’s speech. Also, while Chinese officials and observers often referred to “core 

interests” in the months after the November Joint Statement—usually to criticize U.S. 

policy—one rarely if ever hears high-ranking U.S. government officials using the term. This 

strongly suggests that the section of the Joint Statement containing the concept of core 

interests was drafted by the Chinese and that the Obama administration quickly understood 

the problems with its inclusion. This is very much to the administration’s credit. There is 

much more than just politics and rhetoric at work here. There is a basic intellectual problem 

with the view that U.S.-China cooperation is built on a horse trade of sorts, between policies by the United States that respect China’s core interests, and reciprocal policies from 

China that respect U.S. core interests and “assist” the United States in meeting some of its 

international goals.

The most basic problem with the concept of mutual respect for core interests is that 

almost everything that the United States is asking of China is directly in the interests of the 

PRC itself. So China is not assisting the United States by helping curb nuclear proliferation 

or policing international waters for pirates off the coast of Somalia. It is serving its own 

interests as well, as are all the other countries involved in these joint efforts. So those calling for a punitive reduction of China’s cooperation with the United States on such issues are 

calling for China to do severe harm to its own foreign policy portfolio. This is why the lens 

of joint pursuit of mutual interests—also found in the November 2009 Joint Statement—is a 

better and more realistic foundation on which to build U.S.-PRC cooperation. One important 

example illustrates this.

The Six-Party Talks: Why China’s Cooperation on North Korean Nuclear Weapons Is in 

China’s Interest

It is odd indeed to consider Beijing’s past cooperation in the Six-Party Talks process on North 

Korean denuclearization as somehow being “assistance” in handling one of Washington’s 

core national interests. If the Six-Party Talks fail permanently, there will be many losers, 

the biggest of whom will be the North Korean people, since their nation has been offered 

so much in economic opportunity and diplomatic opening if Pyongyang complies with the 

international community’s demands to give up its nuclear programs. But after North Korea, 

arguably the biggest loser in a failed Six-Party Talks process will be China. Even though this 

outcome would also be very bad for the United States, the notion that by preventing it China 

is helping the United States rather than itself is, frankly, absurd.

China justifiably gained considerable diplomatic prestige by taking a leadership role in 

the Six-Party Talks process, and the United States. and other governments were quick to 

give it credit for taking a more proactive stance on the issue than many could earlier have 

expected from the more traditionally cautious and insular Chinese leadership. Ten or fifteen 

years ago, few observers could have predicted that China would take such a leadership role 

and join the international community in adopting sanctions against its longtime ally. In the 

process, Beijing gained prestige—something sought by all Chinese leaders and regimes in 

the modern era—and promoted its more recently stated goal of reassuring others that the 

rise of its regional and global influence should be welcomed, not feared. 

The most basic problem with 

the concept of mutual respect 

for core interests is that almost 

everything that the United 

States is asking of China is 

directly in the interests of the 

PRC itself. 
6

But just as China gained credit for the progress in the Six-Party Talks in periods such as 

2006–07, it also suffers a great loss of prestige when North Korea refuses to abide by the 

demands of the international community. How can China portray itself as a great power 

when it cannot even positively influence the behavior of its weak neighboring ally, which 

is entirely dependent on its economic ties to China? Since China maintains basically normal 

economic and diplomatic relations with North Korea despite the UN Security Council sanctions it helped create, its relationship with North Korea raises real suspicions in regional 

capitals about its long-term intentions. In particular, since the inauguration of President 

Lee Myung-bak in South Korea in February 2008, Seoul has reduced economic assistance 

programs for the North, holding out growth of economic ties as a carrot tied to the North’s 

moves toward denuclearization. Under these circumstances, many across the political 

spectrum in South Korea view China with great mistrust because its trade and investment 

policies toward the North are viewed as moving into the vacuum left by the South’s tougher 

policies.7 This, they believe, comes at the long-term expense of the greater Korean nation. 

In conversations in Seoul, my interlocutors accused China of everything from cynical exploitation of North Korea’s economy to neocolonialism on the Korean Peninsula. Such a negative 

impression of China, exacerbated greatly by Beijing’s agnostic reaction to the sinking of the 

Republic of Korea (ROK) naval ship Cheonan in March 2010, has undercut fifteen years of 

very successful diplomacy toward South Korea that had reassured many about the meaning 

of China’s rise.

North Korean nuclear developments can also have a catalytic effect on the military modernization of U.S. allies in China’s region and on the degree of coordination and cooperation 

between those allies and the United States. The development of deliverable nuclear weapons 

by North Korea is considered a real threat in Japan, for example. In the most dramatic scenario, North Korean nuclear developments might cause Japan to abandon its nuclear taboo 

and develop nuclear weapons of its own—something China certainly would not want to 

see. Even if we do an objective analysis and say that there are so many domestic and international constraints on Japan’s nuclear development that it remains unlikely, there is little 

doubt that North Korean nuclear developments make such an outcome much more likely 

than it would otherwise be. What is less appreciated, however, is how North Korean nuclear 

weaponization might affect Japan’s conventional programs in ways that China would like to 

avoid. One could very realistically expect enhanced cooperation from Japan in the ongoing 

program to jointly develop regional missile defense with the United States—something that 

China believes hurts its own deterrent capabilities. Moreover, it would seem very reasonable 

if Japan were to overcome its earlier reluctance to build offensive conventional capabilities 

and to invest in a large arsenal of fast, conventionally tipped strike weapons. The cheapest 

and most effective way to defend against North Korean missiles in a war or crisis would be to 

destroy them on the ground. Since such strike weapons would have multiple uses and their 

development would potentially have symbolic meaning for the future of Japan’s military 

posture overall, China would certainly not want to see such an outcome.

North Korean nuclear weapons development, if left unchecked, will also likely lead to much 

greater and more active maritime cooperation between the United States and its regional 

allies over time. Many of these outcomes will be unwelcome in Beijing. Not only will North 

Korean nuclear development catalyze U.S.-Japanese missile defense cooperation, it might 

also spark South Korea to join a regional missile defense program. More generally, the United 

States and its allies have to be concerned about nuclear proliferation not only in North Korea 

but also from North Korea. As we saw in the revelations about North Korean nuclear cooperation with Syria in 2007, an irresponsible regime such as North Korea’s possessing nuclear 

weapons carries the real risk of transfer to other irresponsible state and nonstate actors. So 

we should expect enhanced naval cooperation, exercises, and inspections of North Korean 

North Korean nuclear 

developments can have a 

catalytic effect on the military 

modernization of U.S. allies in 

China’s region and on the degree 

of coordination and cooperation 

between those allies and the 

United States. 
7

shipping by the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other U.S. regional allies and security 

partners as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Beijing will likely be concerned 

about the side effects of this cooperation on the alliances and security partnerships overall 

and about the potential for instability or war on the neighboring Korean Peninsula if North 

Korea were to overreact to the enhanced allied actions against its ships at sea.

This last scenario should not seem at all far-fetched. After the sinking of the Cheonan, 

which an international panel confirmed as resulting from a torpedo attack by a North 

Korean submarine, Beijing objected rather stridently to the U.S. and ROK response: a round 

of exercises including joint antisubmarine warfare exercises in the waters off of the Korean 

Peninsula. Not just the commentators on the blogosphere but the Foreign Ministry spokesperson objected to the exercises for precisely the two reasons offered above.8 The exercises 

were seen as destabilizing given the existing tense post-Cheonan standoff between Seoul 

and Pyongyang, and seen as a challenge to China’s own security interests in the region given 

the contiguity of the Korean Peninsula with China.

For all these reasons, in addition to the most straightforward one—countries generally 

do not relish the acquisition of nuclear weapons by their neighbors—after the North Korean 

people themselves, Beijing is almost certainly the biggest loser from the continuation of 

Pyongyang’s nuclear program and the tensions in the region that flow from that program. 

The notion that Chinese cooperation should be seen as assistance to the United States, 

which should be withheld if Beijing is unhappy with unrelated policies in Washington regarding Taiwan or Tibet, is therefore simply unrealistic.

What is true for North Korea policy is true for other policies. Iran may be more distant 

from China than North Korea, but China is a net importer of energy with a large export sector that would be greatly affected by sudden, sharp price increases, which would raise the 

costs of both production and shipping. Properly considered, China’s energy security, like the 

energy security of all net importers, is in stable prices, the avoidance of shocks, and the 

free flow of energy resources. Iran is a major destabilizing force in the energy-rich Middle 

East and Persian Gulf, even though it does not enjoy the added confidence that nuclear 

weapons might supply. One can only imagine how destabilizing its revolutionary regime 

might become if it should come to believe that it holds a credible nuclear deterrent against 

retribution from others. Moreover, the development of Iranian nuclear weapons is considered 

an existential threat in Israel, since the current leadership in Tehran has publicly called for 

the annihilation of Israel. It seems quite probable that if international diplomacy fails to 

alter Iran’s current trajectory, eventually Israel will take some series of overt and covert 

actions against Iran that could lead to massive instability in the Middle East and Persian Gulf 

regions, regardless of how successful those actions might prove to be. It therefore behooves 

the Chinese, the United States, and the Europeans to more tightly coordinate activities to 

prevent such an outcome, since the resulting instability would hurt all net importers of 

energy very badly.

A similar interest-based argument can and should be made for Chinese purchase of U.S. 

Treasury bills. China does not buy these as an act of charity or diplomacy but because the 

PRC runs a rather large current-account surplus with the world and is looking for safe and 

liquid instruments into which to place large parts of that surplus. Despite all the problems 

in the U.S. economy, Treasury bills still remain an attractive place to park such money. Of 

course, Chinese purchases of Treasury bills are important to the United States, but if China 

were to stop purchasing bills or sell existing holdings, it would be harming itself badly in 

the process. On a broader level, bilateral and global interdependence determine that the last 

thing China wants to see is a severely damaged U.S. economy. The United States is still China’s biggest single export market. Moreover, U.S. economic woes have a strong impact on the 

overall global economy, on which a fully integrated Chinese economy strongly depends.
8

Emphasizing Mutual Global Interests over Core National Interests

For a long time to come, the United States and the PRC are not going to see eye to eye on 

cross-Strait relations, Tibet, or Internet freedom, among other issues. So it seems that if 

China and the United States want to build a cooperative relationship despite those persistent differences, the spirit of Robert Zoellick’s September 21, 2005, speech to the National 

Committee on U.S.-China Relations is a much better starting place than the concept of 

mutual respect for each other’s distinct core national interests. To the Obama administration’s credit, such language is also included in the 2009 Joint Statement: “The United States 

and China have an increasingly broad base of cooperation and share increasingly important 

responsibilities on many major issues concerning global stability and prosperity. The two 

countries should further strengthen coordination and cooperation, work together to tackle 

challenges, and promote world peace, security, and prosperity.”9

It is often said that despite real differences and mutual suspicions, the United States and 

China have many more points of common interest than of conflict. I wholeheartedly agree 

with this proposition. Nothing builds bilateral trust and cooperation better than the two 

nations working together on common problems, as they did a few years ago in the Six-Party 

Talks process and as they have more recently by contributing naval assets to battle pirates 

off the coast of Africa.10 It is very important, not just for global security but also for healthy 

long-term bilateral relations, for there to be increased coordination on North Korean and 

Iranian nuclear issues.

There are many other areas of potential cooperation, including the three briefly mentioned below.

Freedom of the Seas from Piracy

As two of the world’s larger trading nations and the two largest importers of energy 

resources, China and the United States have a strong incentive to cooperate and coordinate 

their activities in fighting piracy and terrorist attacks on shipping. The Gulf of Aden operation, which China decided to join in the waning weeks of the Bush administration, is a good 

start. It demonstrates in concrete terms the common interests between the two sides, and 

it allows a level of military-to-military contact that cannot be replicated in defense ministry 

meeting rooms or classrooms at military academies. 

The existing cooperation in the Gulf of Aden mission could be enhanced further and could 

become a precedent for more frequent tactical-level meetings between the two nations’ 

militaries. Such a constructive meeting took place aboard a Chinese navy flagship in the Gulf 

of Aden on November 1, 2009. The U.S. commander of Combined Task Force 151, Rear Admiral 

Scott Sanders, met with his Chinese counterpart, Rear Admiral Wang Zhiguo. On that occasion, Admiral Sanders stated, “It is clear that China is a reliable partner and that our efforts 

are mutually beneficial.”11 Such concrete reminders of the two nations’ common interests 

provide a stronger foundation for the overall U.S.-China diplomatic relationship than abstract 

statements about mutual respect for allegedly fully distinct core national interests. 

Climate Change

It is obvious to natural scientists and social scientists alike that any effective global 

response to climate change will require coordination and cooperation between China and the 

United States, the two largest greenhouse-gas emitters on the planet and, as our Chinese 

friends often point out, the largest developing economy and the largest developed economy 

in the world. The two nations’ behavior sets the standard for other states in those classes, 

and frankly speaking, the standard they have set to date is very low indeed.

Despite real differences and 

mutual suspicions, the United 

States and China have many 

more points of common interest 

than of conflict.
9

To improve performance on this score, both nations will have to make more impressive 

commitments to reduce emissions than either offered at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit. 

But the most effective solutions to these problems will almost certainly be technological in 

nature and will require enhanced cooperation on the development of clean energy production. For this to be successful, both countries will need to think past short-term economic 

gains, and China, in particular, will need to provide significantly better protection of intellectual property than it has in the past.

Nonproliferation and Counterterrorism

This issue was discussed at length above, but one further point remains. Keeping weapons 

of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists should be a high priority for both the 

United States and China. In a globalized and highly integrated international economy, a 

major terrorist attack on a business center anywhere in the world would negatively affect 

the entire global economy. More specifically, if shipping and other forms of transportation 

for commerce were involved in a terrorist attack, especially one involving a nuclear explosion, this would likely paralyze global commerce. Although China is not among the more 

likely direct targets of such an attack, its national interest is still very much rooted in helping prevent one. Imagine, for example, the devastating effect on the economies of major 

container ports such as Shanghai and Hong Kong if a nuclear device in a shipping container 

were detonated anywhere in the world.

Conclusion

There are many additional areas of potential U.S.-Chinese cooperation, including global 

financial stability, disease control, and product safety. This is why U.S. Embassy Beijing 

is and should be one of the busiest buildings in the entire U.S. government system. The 

examples above are only illustrations of areas where cooperation has taken place and must 

be enhanced if the two nations’ national security interests are to be served. If we succeed 

in achieving real results together and along with other concerned countries, we will have 

done a great deal toward building confidence and trust between the two governments. If, 

instead, China and the United States start with issues on which they simply cannot fully 

agree now or for the foreseeable future, such as Taiwan and Tibet, then they are likely to hit 

a wall with negative repercussions for their bilateral relationship and for their mutual ability 

to contribute to solutions to these global problems.

If China and the United States 

start with issues on which they 

simply cannot fully agree now 

or for the foreseeable future, 

then they are likely to hit a 

wall with negative repercussions 

for their bilateral relationship 

and for their mutual ability to 

contribute to solutions to these 

global problems.

11

Notes

1. I base my conclusions in large part on research trips to China in March and May 2010, and on interactions 

with Chinese scholars, government think-tank researchers, and officials at conferences in Washington in 2010. 

For a good overview of initial Chinese official government and scholarly reaction to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, 

see Li Xiaokun, “Beijing Furious at Arms Sales to Taiwan,” China Daily, Feb. 1, 2010, www.chinadaily.com.cn/

china/2010-02/01/content_9404199.htm.

2. White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “U.S.-China Joint Statement,” Nov. 17, 2009. For an example of 

the citation of this specific passage in the official Chinese media, see Xinhuanet, “Arms Sale Causes Severe 

Damage to Overall U.S.-China Cooperation,” Xinhuanet English News, Jan. 30, 2010, http://news.xinhuanet.

com/english2010/china/2010-01/30/c_13157364.htm. Major General Luo Yuan and his colleagues called 

for economic, military, and diplomatic retaliation against the United States, including the dumping of 

U.S. government bonds. See Chris Buckley, “China PLA Officers Urge Economic Punch against U.S.,” Reuters, 

Feb. 9, 2010.

3. See, for example, Buckley, “China PLA Officers Urge Economic Punch”; and Rowan Callick, “China Goes Ballistic 

over Taiwan Arms Sale,” The Australian, Feb. 2, 2010.

4. See Robert Zoellick, “Whither China: From Membership to Responsibility?” Sept. 21, 2005, www.ncuscr.org/

files/2005Gala_RobertZoellick_Whither_China1.pdf.

5. Buckley, “China PLA Officers Urge Economic Punch”; Callick, “China Goes Ballistic.”

6. For the transcript of Deputy Secretary James Steinberg’s Sept. 24, 2009, speech at the Center for a New 

American Security, see U.S. State Dept., “Administration’s Vision of the U.S.-China Relationship,” www.state.

gov/s/d/2009/129686.htm.

7. Based on extensive discussions with scholars, government officials, and legislators in Seoul, Korea, Oct. 2008.

8. For the unusually strident official response from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, see PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 

“Foreign Ministry Spokeperson Qin Gang’s Remarks on the ROK-U.S. Joint Military Exercises,” July 21, 2010, www.

fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/t718571.htm.

9. White House, “U.S.-China Joint Statement.”

10. For a more detailed explication of these views, see Thomas J. Christensen, “Shaping the Choices of a Rising China: 

Some Recent Lessons for the Obama Administration,” Washington Quarterly 32, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 89–104.

11. See United States Central Command Combined Task Force, “CTF 151 Commander Visits Chinese Counter-Piracy 

Flagship” (press release, Nov. 2, 2009), www.centcom.mil/news/ctf-151-commander-visits-chinese-counterpiracy-flagship.
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Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

www.usip.org

An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.

Of Related Interest

•	 American Negotiating Behavior: Wheeler Dealers, Legal Eagles, Bullies, and Preachers (2010) 

by Richard H. Solomon and Nigel Quinney

•	 Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests Through Old Friends (1999) by Richard H. 

Solomon

•	 North Korea’s Leadership Succession: The China Factor by John S. Park (On the Issues, September 2010)

•	 Managing Crisis and Sustaining Peace between China and the United States by Xinbo Wu 

(Peaceworks, April 2008)

•	 U.S.-China Cooperation on the Problem of Failing States and Transnational Cooperation by 

Banning Garrett and Jonathan Adams (Special Report, September 2004)