Letters | Why there’s more to US-China ties than Alaska fireworks would suggest

Amid a fiery exchange between top-level American and Chinese diplomats in Alaska recently, the media overemphasised the harsh rhetoric and hawkish stance of both sides.

Framing the US-China dispute as a zero-sum game between an incumbent and a rising superpower is of questionable utility. Such an approach fails to see that US-China relations are largely in a state of coexistence. That said, when economic interaction deepens, specific political disputes can escalate. There have been many examples of the US-China political relationship appearing cold while the economic relationship was still warm.

One example is the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis sparked by Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States, which led to a face-off between the Chinese and US militaries. Regular communication between China and the US during the crisis helped to reduce the possibility of miscalculation on either side, eventually de-escalating the crisis. After that, economic linkages between China, Taiwan and the US proliferated.

Misperceptions by elites on both sides, combined with domestic politics and international competition, can trigger heightened disagreements on some issues between the US and China. It does not, however, mean that the two sides cannot cooperate on the Covid-19 pandemic as well as climate change, the most severe and existential threats the world is facing.

Last Tuesday, John Kerry, the Biden administration’s top climate official, joined a virtual meeting on climate change co-hosted by China. So let us focus on the bright side; there is more underlying cooperation in our world than fiery political summits suggest, and the world needs these two major powers to continue cooperating.