China is the most potent driver of change of our era. Yet, amazingly, the US still has no idea of how best to develop this critical relationship over the next 20 years. Washington should strive to inject far more vision into the relationship this year, and not wait until a new American president takes office - but that is unlikely to happen.
Failing to take the offensive in defining a future-leaning China strategy, the current administration has appeared bewildered by how quickly that nation has advanced in its rearview mirror: it has surged forward at surprising speed. Chinese are understandably proud of their nation's progress, and their leaders must feel elated at their own success. Instinctively, however, they must also sense that the US will not sit idly by while China takes every record in the future.
Many groups in the US are suspicious of China's fast-rising power, and their concern is a serious force that no US president or presidential candidate can ignore. If you talk with average Americans about China, however, you discover a simple hope - that both countries can simply continue to get along in the future. The reality is likely to be more complex, given the inevitable frictions between such large forces.
China's gains are easily characterised as America's losses, even though this tends to be more exaggeration than fact. After all, the beneficiary of affordable Chinese products is the American consumer, and the beneficiary of Chinese ownership of US Treasury bills is the American style of life: credit-rich and carefree. Without China as a stakeholder, inflation would be stronger and economic options more limited in the US.
During the Bush administration, the relationship has ebbed and flowed. After 9/11, China received a 'bye', in sporting terms: the US, distracted by terrorism and Iraq, was absent from Asia most of the time, allowing Beijing to set its own course without excessive debate.
For China, this relatively independent adolescence was a boon. Sound economic development policy combined with huge inflows of foreign capital have made it a success story like no other. For the US, the consequences of this lapse, this missed opportunity to more thoroughly work with a rising star, are still unknown. But they are likely to portend less influence over the next phase of China's emergence than is desirable to most of the Washington establishment.