The US should seek common ground with China before it's too late

THE year 2022 is likely to be a decisive one for US-China relations. Momentum has been building for some years for a more aggressive and confrontational approach towards China. Today there is a near-unanimous view across the political spectrum that the US should stand up to China on economic, strategic, and technological fronts.

But while hostility and rivalry are likely to be the new paradigm, a few signs indicate that the US and China are working to identify common ground. At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the two nations issued a pledge - admittedly short on specifics - to work together to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. The following week, Presidents Xi and Biden held a 3-hour virtual summit, marked by differences but also including an expressed desire to establish guardrails and move the superpower relationship in a positive direction.

The need for long-term global economic stability is too great not to follow up and venture a limited and carefully defined cooperative approach. If the desire is genuine, infrastructure would be a good place to start. The story of the US and China's divergent paths on infrastructure is rich in policy lessons and suggests that there may in fact be a basis for cooperation - cooperation that might in turn provide a means for engaging China and moving it closer to our international rules-based system.