In Sino-US relations, there have been a struggle between the attempt to evolutionalize and the efforts to resist being evolutionalized, and the move to pressure and the resistance against such pressure. But there is no ideological struggle nor overall ideological competition in Asia or in the world between China and the United States. It is true that competition is neither a negative nor a frightening term. We cannot deny some kind of competition in international relations. However, using the term to generalize and define Sino-US relations today and the future falls short of describing the real situation and the direction of the relationship.
Competition is normal and healthy in the economic field.
Regrettably, even in this realm of benign competition, China has yet to acquire the ability to compete with the United States. And through the entire century, most of the major powers engaged alliances with each another. Looking at the world today and in the future of the 21st century, those three models of major power relations are neither fit nor necessary. The most basic reason is that the development of technology and production capability has led to an excessively high price in war and confrontation between major powers. In the new century, any country s national strategy that is characterized by the basic goal of pursuing and realizing its national interest will remain intact.