[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.20]

domudomuUID: 2670967

  In such a black night, I read such a political issue. Yes, the relationship among China, Taiwan and USA can be talked over and over again during past years.

  What the artical convey is the true and subtle relationship between China and USA from an American view. Just reported by the China Daily and viewed by the whole world, every one get to know that China is at a high developing rate and owns a large foreign curruncy. A strong China in political or economy is not uncommen, however, we even can see the  rudiment of a great country.Looking back to the not yet past financial crisis, every country suffers from it more or less. But, why would China still like to lend that much money to USA is remaining solving.I doubt whether China is so strong as the report always point. We are just accustomed to know the process of getting stonger of China. However, there must be some problem exisiting behind this.

  As to the issue among the mainland, Taiwan and USA, Chinese government has always highlight that Taiwan is a important part of China, and in order to prove this territory the government will never give up even though military force.

中原527UID: 2707367

A special report on China and America
A wary respect

Oct 22nd 2009 From The Economist print edition

America and China need each other, but they are a long way from trusting each other, says James Miles.

“OUR future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” said the American president as he contemplated the extraordinary commercial opportunities that were opening up in Asia. More than a hundred years after Theodore Roosevelt（西奥多罗斯福） made this prediction, American leaders are again looking across the Pacific to determine their own country’s future, and that of the rest of the world. Rather later than Roosevelt expected, China has become an inescapable(a.不可避免性) part of it.
中国影响力更大
Back in 1905, America was the rising power. Britain, then ruler of the waves, was worrying about losing its supremacy（n.霸权） to the upstart（n.暴发户: to jump up (as to one's feet) suddenly）. Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger. A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse（: a falling into obscurity or decline; also : the state of being eclipsed <his reputation has fallen into eclipse> vt.引起日蚀, 引起月蚀, 超越, 使黯然失色） British power without bloodshed, but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated global wars. President Barack Obama faces a China that is growing richer and stronger while remaining tenaciously（: persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired <a tenacious advocate of civil rights> <tenacious negotiators>） authoritarian. Its rise will be far more nettlesome （causing vexation : irritating） than that of his own country a century ago.

With America’s economy in tatters（n.破布） and China’s still growing fast (albeit not as fast as before last year’s financial crisis), many politicians and intellectuals in both China and America feel that the balance of power is shifting more rapidly in China’s favour. Few expect the turning point to be as imminent as it was for America in 1905. But recent talk of a “G2” hints at a remarkable shift in the two countries’ relative strengths: they are now seen as near-equals whose co-operation is vital to solving the world’s problems, from finance to climate change and nuclear proliferation.
Choose your weapons

Next month Mr Obama will make his first ever visit to China. He and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (pictured above) stress the need for co-operation and avoid playing up their simmering trade disputes, fearful of what failure to co-operate could mean. On October 1st China offered a stunning display of the hard edge of its rising power as it paraded its fast-growing military arsenal through Beijing.写ISSUE可借鉴~

The financial crisis has sharpened fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat. China has become the world’s biggest lender to America through its purchase of American Treasury securities, which in theory would allow it to wreck the American economy. These fears ignore the value-destroying (and, for China’s leaders, politically hugely embarrassing) effect that a sell-off of American debt would have on China’s dollar reserves. This special report will explain why China will continue to lend to America, and why the yuan is unlikely to become a reserve currency soon.
这段没看懂，是说他们的恐惧忽略了某种影响，这种影响是美国的债务会被中国美元储备所囊括。这个报道不仅解释了为什么中国仍能够影响美国，和为什么人民币不太可能很快成为流通储备。（这两者感觉是相反的含义啊…中国能影响美国，接下来符合逻辑 的不应该是人民币很快成为流通货币这类的意思么？）
When Lawrence Summers was president of Harvard University (he is now Mr Obama’s chief economic adviser), he once referred to a “balance of financial terror” between America and its foreign creditors, principally China and Japan. That was in 2004, when Japan’s holdings were more than four times the size of China’s. By September 2008 China had taken the lead. China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, said in July that China’s massive holdings of US Treasuries meant it could break the dollar’s reserve-currency status any time. But it also noted that in effect this was a “foreign-exchange version of the cold-war stalemate based on ‘mutually （adv.互相地, 互助）assured destruction’”.

China is exploring the rubble （n.碎石）of the global economy in hopes of accelerating its own rise. Some Chinese commentators point to the example of the Soviet Union, which exploited Western economic disarray （v.混乱）during the Depression to acquire industrial technology from desperate Western sellers. China has long chafed at controls imposed by America on high-technology exports that could be used for military purposes. It sees America’s plight（ vt.保证, 约定）as a cue to push for the lifting of such barriers and for Chinese companies to look actively for buying opportunities among America’s high-technology industries.

The economic crisis briefly slowed the rapid growth, from a small base, of China’s outbound direct investment. Stephen Green of Standard Chartered predicts that this year it could reach about the same level as in 2008 (nearly $56 billion, which was more than twice as much as the year before). Some Americans worry about China’s FDI, just as they once mistakenly did about Japan’s buying sprees, but many will welcome the stability and employment that it provides.

China may have growing financial muscle, but it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands. This special report will argue that the United States may have to get used to a bigger Chinese presence on its own soil, including some of its most hallowed turf（神圣的草皮，赛马场？？？）, such as the car industry. A Chinese man may even get to the moon before another American. But talk of a G2 is highly misleading. By any measure, China’s power is still dwarfed by America’s.

Authoritarian though China remains, the two countries’ economic philosophies are much closer than they used to be. As Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University puts it, socialism with Chinese characteristics (as the Chinese call their brand of communism) is looking increasingly like capitalism with American characteristics. In Mr Yan’s view, China’s and America’s common interest in dealing with the financial crisis will draw them closer together strategically too. Global economic integration, he argues with a hint of resentment, has made China “more willing than before to accept America’s dominance”.

The China that many American business and political leaders see is one that appears to support the status quo and is keen to engage peacefully with the outside world. But there is another side to the country. Nationalism is a powerful, growing and potentially disruptive force. Many Chinese—even among those who were educated in America—are suspicious of American intentions and resentful of American power. They are easily persuaded that the West, led by the United States, wants to block China’s rise.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between America and China, which proved a dramatic turning point in the cold war. Between the communist victory in 1949 and President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 there had been as little contact between the two countries as there is between America and North Korea today. But the eventual disappearance of the two countries’ common enemy, the Soviet Union, raised new questions in both countries about why these two ideological rivals should be friends. Mutual economic benefit emerged as a winning answer. More recently, both sides have been trying to reinforce the relationship by stressing that they have a host of new common enemies, from global epidemics to terrorism.

But it is a relationship fraught with contradictions. A senior American official says that some of his country’s dealings with China are like those with the European Union; others resemble those with the old Soviet Union, “depending on what part of the bureaucracy you are dealing with”.

Cold-war parallels are most obvious in the military arena. China’s military build-up in the past decade has been as spectacular as its economic growth, catalysed by the ever problematic issue of Taiwan, the biggest thorn in the Sino-American relationship. There are growing worries in Washington, DC, that China’s military power could challenge America’s wider military dominance in the region. China insists there is nothing to worry about. But even if its leadership has no plans to displace American power in Asia, this special report will say that America is right to fret that this could change.

Politically, China is heading for a particularly unsettled period as preparations gather pace for sweeping leadership changes in 2012 and 2013. Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will be among many senior politicians due to retire. As America moves towards its own presidential elections in 2012, its domestic politics will complicate matters. Taiwan too will hold presidential polls in 2012 in which China-sceptic politicians will fight to regain power.
Triple hazard（三足鼎立类似词意思吧）

This political uncertainty in all three countries simultaneously will be a big challenge for the relationship between China and America. All three will still be grappling with the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Urban Chinese may be feeling relaxed right now, but there could be trouble ahead. Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China’s central bank, says wasteful spending on things like unnecessary infrastructure projects (which is not uncommon in China) could eventually drain the country’s fiscal strength and leave it with “no more drivers for growth”. In recent weeks even Chinese leaders have begun to sound the occasional note of caution about the stability of China’s recovery.


This special report will argue that the next few years could be troubled ones for the bilateral relationship. China, far more than an economically challenged America, is roiled by social tensions. Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging. The leadership is fearful of its own citizens. Mr Obama is dealing with a China that is at risk of overestimating its strength relative to America’s. Its frailties—social, political and economic—could eventually imperil （vt.使处于危险, 危害） both its own stability and its dealings with the outside world.
COMMENTS
From the passage, America have regarded China as its the important emulant that may imperil its supremacy of controlling the world. Maybe some patriots in our country are satisfied with this the state of America and imagine that our mother country has an equal position with America in economy, military strength and so on. The financial data indeed points that America’s economy is in tatters and China’s still growing fast. But in my views, our country has many domestic problems to solve such as the disadvantage that it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands. With the goal of becoming the real great power in the world, We still has a long way to go.

海王泪UID: 2673613

32# 中原527

The financial crisis has sharpened fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat. China has become the world’s biggest lender to America through its purchase of American Treasury securities, which in theory would allow it to wreck the American economy. These fears ignore the value-destroying (and, for China’s leaders, politically hugely embarrassing) effect that a sell-off of American debt would have on China’s dollar reserves. This special report will explain why China will continue to lend to America, and why the yuan is unlikely to become a reserve currency soon.
这段没看懂，是说他们的恐惧忽略了某种影响，这种影响是美国的债务会被中国美元储备所囊括。这个报道不仅解释了为什么中国仍能够影响美国，和为什么人民币不太可能很快成为流通储备。（这两者感觉是相反的含义啊…中国能影响美国，接下来符合逻辑 的不应该是人民币很快成为流通货币这类的意思么？）

这里说的是美国人担心中国购买国库卷会对美国经济产生不好的影响。 然后作者指出，These fears ignore balabala（转折） ，说中国的美元储备会跟着美国的债卷一起贬值，（中国还怕你美国不行了，怎么会害你呢？）。 所以，（美国人的不应该认为中国的间接投资是一种威胁），中国还是会继续借钱给美国政府花，（帮助美国走出困境，以维持中国现有的美元储备价值，至少不要贬值得太厉害。）（美元的保值意味着美元继续强势），因此人民币不太可能成为他国的储备货币。

简而言之，前面说的是流行观点担心中国对美国的威胁，作者则反驳说中国不是在害美国。。中国会继续借钱给美国，美元继续强势，意味着人民不太可能成为流通储备。。 希望没理解错·

sunflower_irisUID: 2720580

“A country does not have permanent friends, only permanent interests.” British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston said. It’s a explanation of the relationship between China and America that these two ideological rivals are friends even though they do not trust each other. The foundation of this relationship is not friendship but intersts. We no longer call America as US imperialism while American have not get off the words as authoritarian , bureaucracy , poor when they think about China. I believe we know the real America is far more than they know the real China.

I just watched the speech of “Chinese Dream” by Bai Yansong in Yale University, after the speech, there were interviews to American about their ways of looking at China. What impressed me most was the president of the US Asia Society Vishakhan Desai’s words. She said “I always ask my Chinese friends that would you want to be known for the growth rate of 8% GDP? Will people remember that in 300 years later? Would you want to be known for the bigger buildings or bigger role in the world? Or do you want to think about your 5000 years old civilization and how to use the values of that civilization?” I must say she’s right, we should pround of our long history and rich cultures which America is surely not to be compare to. But from another perspective, if  our economy haven’t grown rapidly or we haven’t played a bigger role in the world, who cares our civilization the world around?

AdelineShenUID: 2630498

A special report on China and America A wary respect Oct 22nd 2009 From The Economist print edition America and China need each other, but they are a long way from trusting each other, says James Miles. “OUR future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” said the American president as he contemplated the extraordinary commercial opportunities that were opening up in Asia. More than a hundred years after Theodore Roosevelt made this prediction, American leaders are again looking across the Pacific to determine their own country’s future, and that of the rest of the world. Rather later than Roosevelt expected, China has become an inescapable part of it. (China has become part of the determine element of the development of America.) Back in 1905, America was the rising power. Britain, then ruler of the waves, was worrying about losing its supremacy to the upstart. Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger. A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse British power without bloodshed(good expression), but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated global wars. President Barack Obama faces a China that is growing richer and stronger while remaining tenaciously(persistent) authoritarian. Its rise will be far more nettlesome(irritating) than that of his own country a century ago. (America is facing a rising China) With America’s economy in tatters and China’s still growing fast (albeit not as fast as before last year’s financial crisis), many politicians and intellectuals in both China and America feel that the balance of power is shifting more rapidly in China’s favour. Few expect the turning point to be as imminent as it was for America in 1905. But recent talk of a “G2” hints at a remarkable shift in the two countries’ relative strengths: they are now seen as near-equals whose co-operation is vital to solving the world’s problems, from finance to climate change and nuclear proliferation. (America and China are now seen as near-equals whose co-operation is vital to solving the world's problems.) Choose your weapons Next month Mr Obama will make his first ever visit to China. He and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (pictured above) stress the need for co-operation and avoid playing up their simmering(ferment) trade disputes, fearful of what failure to co-operate could mean. On October 1st China offered a stunning display of the hard edge of its rising power as it paraded its fast-growing military arsenal through Beijing. The financial crisis has sharpened fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat. China has become the world’s biggest lender to America through its purchase of American Treasury securities, which in theory would allow it to wreck the American economy. These fears ignore the value-destroying (and, for China’s leaders, politically hugely embarrassing) effect that a sell-off of American debt would have on China’s dollar reserves. This special report will explain why China will continue to lend to America, and why the yuan is unlikely to become a reserve currency soon.(TS) When Lawrence Summers was president of Harvard University (he is now Mr Obama’s chief economic adviser), he once referred to a “balance of financial terror” between America and its foreign creditors, principally(good expression) China and Japan. That was in 2004, when Japan’s holdings were more than four times the size of China’s. By September 2008 China had taken the lead. China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, said in July that China’s massive holdings of US Treasuries meant it could break the dollar’s reserve-currency status any time. But it also noted that in effect this was a “foreign-exchange version of the cold-war stalemate based on ‘mutually assured destruction’”. China is exploring the rubble of the global economy in hopes of accelerating its own rise. Some Chinese commentators point to the example of the Soviet Union, which exploited Western economic disarray during the Depression to acquire industrial technology from desperate Western sellers. China has long chafed at controls imposed by America on high-technology exports that could be used for military purposes. It sees America’s plight as a cue to push for the lifting of such barriers and for Chinese companies to look actively for buying opportunities among America’s high-technology industries. (China sees America's plight as an opportunity to buy America's high-tech industries, just as the Soviet Union during the Depression) The economic crisis briefly slowed the rapid growth, from a small base, of China’s outbound direct investment. Stephen Green of Standard Chartered predicts that this year it could reach about the same level as in 2008 (nearly $56 billion, which was more than twice as much as the year before). Some Americans worry about China’s FDI, just as they once mistakenly did about Japan’s buying sprees, but many will welcome the stability and employment that it provides. China may have growing financial muscle, but it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands. This special report will argue that the United States may have to get used to a bigger Chinese presence on its own soil, including some of its most hallowed turf, such as the car industry. A Chinese man may even get to the moon before another American. But talk of a G2 is highly misleading. By any measure, China’s power is still dwarfed by America’s. (The talk of G2 is highly misleading and China's power is still dwarfed by America's.) Authoritarian though China remains, the two countries’ economic philosophies are much closer than they used to be. As Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University puts it, socialism with Chinese characteristics (as the Chinese call their brand of communism) is looking increasingly like capitalism with American characteristics. In Mr Yan’s view, China’s and America’s common interest in dealing with the financial crisis will draw them closer together strategically too. Global economic integration, he argues with a hint of resentment, has made China “more willing than before to accept America’s dominance”. (Global economic integration had made China and America draw closer together strategically.) The China that many American business and political leaders see is one that appears to support the status quo and is keen to engage peacefully with the outside world. But there is another side to the country. Nationalism is a powerful, growing and potentially disruptive force. Many Chinese—even among those who were educated in America—are suspicious of American intentions and resentful of American power. They are easily persuaded that the West, led by the United States, wants to block China’s rise. (Nationalism is powerful and many Chinese believe that America wants to block China's rise.) This year marks(good expression) the 30th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between America and China, which proved a dramatic turning point in the cold war. Between the communist victory in 1949 and President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 there had been as little contact between the two countries as there is between America and North Korea today. But the eventual disappearance of the two countries’ common enemy, the Soviet Union, raised new questions in both countries about why these two ideological rivals should be friends. Mutual economic benefit emerged as a winning answer. More recently, both sides have been trying to reinforce the relationship by stressing that they have a host of new common enemies, from global epidemics to terrorism. (China and America should bind each other to beat the common enemies.) But it is a relationship fraught with(good expression) contradictions. A senior American official says that some of his country’s dealings with China are like those with the European Union; others resemble those with the old Soviet Union, “depending on what part of the bureaucracy you are dealing with”. Cold-war parallels are most obvious in the military arena. China’s military build-up in the past decade has been as spectacular as its economic growth, catalysed by the ever problematic issue of Taiwan, the biggest thorn in the Sino-American relationship. There are growing worries in Washington, DC, that China’s military power could challenge America’s wider military dominance in the region. China insists there is nothing to worry about. But even if its leadership has no plans to displace American power in Asia, this special report will say that America is right to fret that this could change. (America is worrying about China's military power.) Politically, China is heading for a particularly unsettled period as preparations gather pace for sweeping leadership changes in 2012 and 2013. Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will be among many senior politicians due to retire. As America moves towards its own presidential elections in 2012, its domestic politics will complicate matters. Taiwan too will hold presidential polls in 2012 in which China-sceptic politicians will fight to regain power. (The politic will be more complicated heading for 2012) Triple hazard This political uncertainty in all three countries simultaneously will be a big challenge for the relationship between China and America. All three will still be grappling with the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Urban Chinese may be feeling relaxed right now, but there could be trouble ahead. Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China’s central bank, says wasteful spending on things like unnecessary infrastructure projects (which is not uncommon in China) could eventually drain the country’s fiscal strength and leave it with “no more drivers for growth”. In recent weeks even Chinese leaders have begun to sound the occasional note of caution about the stability of China’s recovery. This special report will argue that the next few years could be troubled ones for the bilateral relationship. China, far more than an economically challenged America, is roiled by social tensions. Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging. The leadership is fearful of its own citizens. Mr Obama is dealing with a China that is at risk of overestimating its strength relative to America’s. Its frailties—social, political and economic—could eventually imperil both its own stability and its dealings with the outside world.

Comments:

Since the economic crisis, China is seen as a stronger and stronger country because of its large holding of Amrican securities. Apart from the rapid economic growth, Ameica is also  worrying about the military power of China and sees China as a threat for them. But is it true that China will be a threat for America? Chinese people are always searching for world peace and trying our best to develope not only our own country but also other developing countries whose people are suffering from poverty. China is a great country and should actually take its responsible for the world problems such as epidemics and terrorism. But at the same time, China is still a deveoping country with a lot of problems difficult to solve. Taiwan is still seperated from the mainland.  Corruption is rampant. There is a great gap between the poor and the wealth, which is even greater than America. Millions of poor children in the west of the country don't have the chance to go to school. Chinese government has taken its responsibility to save the economic crisis result from the economic system of America. But who will save those children who are suffering from poverty and is unable to go to school just as we do? Who will help China develop into low-carbon economy which needs a lot of new technologies and financial support? It is true that China's economy is developing faster and faster, but it is not true that China is a threat of America. Nowadays China and America should bind each other and cooperate to solve the world problems, although it is a long way to go.~

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

When things relate to the political field, everything becomes complex, especially it refers to the hottest debate in recent years: the relationship between China and America.

Sometimes the human condition is a pathetic one. Two great countries, nearly two billion people together, but all we can do is worrying about who will dominate whom. Why can't we choose to be at peace? Why can’t we sink the ships, bury the guns, and open the borders? Because someone refuses to let it go and tries to spoil the whole thing.

It’s clear that America doesn’t want a powerful China and this counter is at its peak under the financial crisis. In the climate conference in Gopenhagen, the observations of America always aimed at China. This expresses at least something about this situation.

都说了不是又八UID: 2728357

Comment


Personally speaking, the article is splendid written that I just couldn’t help reciting it to the end.


Meanwhile the article alarms on several points. Chinese are inured to the notion that “the western countries are forming a league on blocking China’s passage to a rise. I’m no activist base on the folk perspective, thus the shrug Westerners exhibited makes me a bit confused. Seems we’ve been creating an enemy in our minds, right.

About politics, nothing is clean with glory. Dirt everywhere.



A wary respect

America and China need each other, but they are a long way from trusting each other, says James Milles.

“Our future history will be more determined by our position on the Pacific facing China than by our position on the Atlantic facing Europe,” said the American president as he contemplated the extraordinary commercial opportunities that were opening up in Asia. More than a hundred years after looking across the Pacific to determine their own country’s future, and that of the rest of the world. Rather later than Roosevelt expected, China has become an inescapable part of it.


Back in 1905, America was the rising power. Britain, then ruler of the waves, was worrying about losing its supremacy to the upstart. Now it is America that looks uneasily on the rise of a potential challenger. A shared cultural and political heritage helped America to eclipse British power without bloodshed, but the rise of Germany and Japan precipitated global wars. President Barack Obama faces a China that is growing richer and stronger while remaining tenaciously authoritarian. Its rise will be far more nettlesome than that of his own country a century ago.


With America’s economy in tatters and China’s still growing fast (albeit not as fast as before last year’s financial crisis), many politicians and intellectuals in both China and America feel that the balance of power is shifting more rapidly in China’s favour. Few expect the turning point to be as imminent as it was for America in 1905. But recent talk of a “G2” hints at a remarkable shift in the two countries’ relative strengths: they are now seen as near-equals whose co-operation is vital to solving the world’s problems, from finance to climate change and nuclear proliferation.


Next month Mr. Obama will make his first ever visit to China. He and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao stress the need for co-operation and avoid playing up their simmering trade disputes, fearful of what failure to co-operate could mean. On October 1st China offered a stunning display of the hard edge of its rising power as it paraded its fast-growing military arsenal through Beijing.


The financial crisis has sharpened fears of what Americans often see as another potential threat. China has become the world’s biggest lender to America through its purchase of American Treasury securities, which in theory would allow it to wreck the American economy. These fears ignore the value-destroying (and, for China’s leaders, politically hugely embarrassing) effect that a sell-off of American debt would have on China’s dollar reserves. This special report will explain why China will continue to lend to America, and why the yuan is unlikely to become a reserve currency soon.


When Lawrence Summers was president of Harvard University (he is now Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser), he once referred to a “balance of financial terror” between America and its foreign creditors, principally China and Japan. That was in 2004, when Japan’s holdings were more than four times the size of China’s. By September 2008 China had taken the lead. China Daily, an official English-language newspaper, said in July that China’s massive holdings of US Treasuries meant it could break the dollar’s reserve-currency status any time. But it also noted that in effect this was a “foreign-exchange version of the cold-war stalemate based on ‘mutually assured destruction’”.


China is exploring the rubble of the global economy in hopes of accelerating its own rise. Some Chinese commentators point to the example of the Soviet Union, which exploited Western economic disarray during the Depression to acquire industrial technology from desperate Western sellers. China has long chafed at controls imposed by America on high-technology exports that could be used for military purposes. It sees America’s plight as a cue to push for the lifting of such barriers and for Chinese companies to look actively for buying opportunities among America’s high-technology industries.


The economic crisis briefly slowed the rapid growth, from a small base, of China’s outbound direct investment. Stephen Green of Standard Chartered predicts that this year it could reach about the same level as in 2008 (nearly $56 billion, which was more than twice as much as the year before). Some Americans worry about China’s FDI, just as they once mistakenly did about Japan’s buying sprees, but many will stability and employment that it provides.


China may have growing financial muscle, but it still lags far behind as a technological innovator and creator of global brands. This special report will argue that the United States may have to get used to a bigger Chinese presence on its own soil, including some of its most hallowed turf, such as the car industry. A Chinese man may even get to the moon before another American. But talk of a G2 is highly misleading. By any measure, China’s power is still dwarfed by America’s.


Authoritarian though China remains, the two countries’ economic philosophies are much closer than they used to be. As Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University puts it, socialism with Chinese characteristics (as the Chinese call their brand of communism) is looking increasingly like capitalism with American characteristics. In Mr. Yan’s view, China’s and America’s common interest in dealing with the financial crisis will draw them closer together strategically, too. Global economic integration, he argues with a hint of resentment, has made China “more willing than before to accept America’s dominance”.


The China that many American business and political leaders see is one that appears to support the status quo and is keen to engage peacefully with the outside world. But there is another side to the country. Nationalism is a powerful, growing and potentially disruptive force. Many Chinese – even among those who were educated in America – are suspicious of American intentions and resentful of American power. They are easily persuaded that the West, led by the United States, wants to block China’s rise.


This year marks the 30th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between America and China, which proved a dramatic turning point in the cold war. Between the communist victory in 1949 and President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 there had been as little contact between the two countries as there is between America and North Korea today. But the eventual disappearance of the two countries’ common enemy, the Soviet Union, raised new questions in both countries about why these two ideological rivals should be friends. Mutual economic benefit emerged as a winning answer. More recently, both sides have been trying to reinforce the relationship by stressing that they have a host of new common enemies, from global epidemics to terrorism.


But it is a relationship fraught with contradictions. A senior American official says that some of his country’s dealings with China are like those with the European Union; others resemble those with the old Soviet Union, “depending on what part of the bureaucracy you are dealing with”.


Cold-war parallels are most obvious in the military arena. China’s military build-up in the past decade has been as spectacular as its economic growth, catalysed by the ever problematic issue of Taiwan, the biggest thorn in the Sino-American relationship. There are growing worries in Washington, DC, that China’s military power could challenge America’s wider military dominance in the region. China insists there is nothing to worry about. But even if its leadership has no plans to displace American power in Asia, this special report will say that America is right to fret that this could change.


Politically, China is heading for a particularly unsettled period as preparations gather pace for sweeping leadership changes in 2012 and 2013. Mr. Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, will be among many senior politicians due to retire. As America moves towards its own presidential elections in 2012, its domestic politics will complicate matters. Taiwan too will hold presidential polls in 2012 in which China-sceptic politicians will fight to regain power.


This political uncertainty in all three countries simultaneously will be a big challenge for the relationship between China and America. All three will still be grappling with the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Urban Chinese may be feeling relaxed right now, but there could be trouble ahead. Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China’s central bank, says wasteful spending on things like unnecessary infrastructure projects (which is not uncommon in China) could eventually drain the country’s fiscal strength and leave it with “no more drivers for growth”. In recent weeks even Chinese leaders have begun to sound the occasional note of caution about the stability of China’s recovery.


This special report will argue that the next few years could be troubled ones for the bilateral relationship. China, far more than an economically challenged America, is roiled by social tensions. Protests are on the rise, corruption is rampant, crime is surging. The leadership is fearful of its own citizens. Mr. Obama is dealing with a China that is at risk of overestimating its strength relative to America’s. Its frailties – social, political and economic – could eventually imperil both its own stability and its dealings with the outside world.
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