After a year of acrimony and deterioration, US-China relations seem to have stabilised. To be sure, the summit between presidents Hu Jintao and Barack Obama in Washington in late January was widely lauded as a success. In particular, China's expressed concerns about North Korea's uranium enrichment programme were welcomed by the US as a sign that Beijing is now getting serious about restraining Pyongyang's aggressive and dangerous behaviour.
On the economic track, things are looking up as well. Commercial contracts worth US$45 billion signed or announced during Hu's visit helped. More importantly, with the renminbi steadily appreciating in real terms, the political pressure on the Obama administration and the Chinese government is abating.
However, these encouraging developments have not changed the underlying dynamics that have greatly increased mutual distrust and caused a steady deterioration of relations in recent years. China cannot afford to be complacent.
While it requires efforts by both sides to further stabilise US-China ties, Beijing needs to do more to show that it has learned the lessons from its diplomatic missteps last year and that it is deeply committed to maintaining a constructive relationship with Washington.
Perhaps the most critical task in the immediate future for China in this regard is to fulfil the commitments Hu made while in Washington. Pressuring the reckless Pyongyang regime to roll back its uranium enrichment programme will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. But China has no choice but to try.
It can no longer credibly claim an inability to make North Korea change its aggressive behaviour, since in recent months Chinese pressure on Pyongyang seems to have been remarkably effective in making the Kim Jong-il regime behave better.
Chinese leaders need to understand that it is in their own interest to rein in Pyongyang on the nuclear front. A key cause of China's troubles with the United States, Japan and South Korea last year was Beijing's relative tolerance of Pyongyang's misbehaviour. More importantly, North Korean escalation in expanding its nuclear arsenal will elicit a firm US response that will certainly cause fresh Sino-American friction.