Two camps on China-US ties: Engagement Plus vs a new cold war

THE conventional wisdom in the aftermath of the signing of the Phase One trade pact between Beijing and Washington goes something like this: So this was not a peace treaty, but more like a pause in what will be a long and costly economic war between China and the United States.

Stemming from this depressing conclusion is the notion that the two governments have yet to resolve the structural economic problems that separate them, and that, in particular, the Americans are going to press China to reverse its industrial policies - or face a new cold war that would lead to the "de-coupling" of their economies. But in a way, that prediction probably describes the worst-case-scenario, infused with intellectual determinism, in the future of the Sino-American relationship. And we should recognise that there is nothing inevitable about it.

It is true that members of the political establishment in Washington (as well as many American business executives) have become more and more sceptical in recent years about the wisdom of the US' "engagement" with China, as the dream (or fantasy) of communist China being transformed into a liberal, free-market economy as a result of its integration into the global economy dissipates.