The Sway of Strategic Cooperation and Deterrence on U.S.-China Relations

Abstract

This article discusses U.S.-China relations and the regional order in the Asia-Pacific region under Xi Jinping's regime with his slogan “China Dream” (the “Great Renewal of Chinese Nation”). This paper will be split into three sections. The first section investigates the fundamental principles of Xi Jinping's foreign policy—the China Dream and the New Model of Major-Country Relations with the United States—and discusses how the New Model of Major-Country Relations with the United States is different from the so-called Group of Two (G2). The second section discusses America's Rebalancing to Asia (or Pivot to Asia) Strategy and how it became the premise of Xi Jinping's New Model of Major-Country Relations with the United States. It also discusses the mutual distrust and alarm the U.S. and China bear toward each other. Further, this section will argue that while both the Rebalancing Strategy of the Obama administration's Asia-focused policy and the Xi Jinping administration's U.S.-focused New Model of Major-Country Relations policy are based on the strategy of realism, and while China's hardline foreign policy is causing tension in Asia, the U.S.-China relationship is one of two nations pursuing collaborations in favor of confrontation and conflict. The third section examines how the deepening of the economic interdependence between the two nations has made it no longer possible to argue that the U.S.-China relation is a zero sum game. Lastly, this paper views how the new energy foreign policies of both the U.S. and China will further strengthen their relationship.