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superpower and the emerging power. As China grew rich, it was reasoned, it could be peacefully integrated into the current international framework built by America and the Western powers from the rubbles of World War II. This liberal consensus of foreign policy thinking dominated America’s strategy with China for the past four decades or so. Now, it appears that consensus is all but over and increasingly replaced by a new consensus that it is time for America to stand up to China. As President Trump fervently lamented in his National Security Strategy, “For decades, US policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others.”⁷⁵

In other words, changes in the Trump administration’s China policy appear to reflect the growing consensus within the Washington foreign policy establishment towards changes in China’s foreign and domestic politics since President Xi Jinping ushered in a “new era” of reforms for China in 2012. There is no doubt that American perceptions of China changed dramatically in the last decade, and changes in mutual perceptions might converge to push China-US relations over the edge. The bilateral relationship is now “entering the third phase of relations, where we’re once again defining China principally as a strategic competitor both in economics and security,” commented David Lampton, professor and director of China Studies at Johns Hopkins—SAIS in an interview.⁷⁶ Chinese experts, many of whom believe that the two countries have already entered an era of growing competition and even strategic rivalry, echoed such pessimistic views.

      Looking back on the election, China was optimistic that the Trump administration would not disrupt the existing framework of the world’s most important relationship, and bilateral economic relations would improve while security tensions simmer down. After all, Trump was perceived in China as a practical businessman who would be flexible enough to strike deals with Beijing based on pure bargaining rather than values-laden strategies. However, the ongoing trade war, in which the US government imposes a battery of tariffs against billions’ worth of Chinese goods while restricting Chinese investments in high-tech areas, has set Trump’s China policy onto a different and more belligerent path that would have far-reaching implications beyond the economic realm. For one thing, Trump’s trade war is widely interpreted as an offensive tactic against the Chinese government’s “Made in China” 2025 program, which is central to President Xi Jinping’s vision to transform China into a technological superpower as well as a key step to realizing China’s national rejuvenation.

This explains why the current trade disputes between China and the United States is more than just a spat over US-China trade imbalances, intellectual property rights, or market restrictions. On a much deeper level, the trade standoff between these two countries reflects an escalating political, economic, and even military rivalry between the status quo power and its most likely challenger. It also represents a clash between two great powers with divergent political and economic systems, markedly different worldviews, and perhaps conflicting national aspirations. Therefore, no matter how the current brinkmanship over trade imbalances will play out in the short term, the long-term trajectory of China-US relations is almost certain to be characterized by escalating strategic tension that, if not well managed, has the potential to develop into full-blown conflicts.

       CONCLUSION

      The 2016 presidential election was the first US election to take place after Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. Drastic changes have since taken place in China, in the United States, and the world at large. With China’s rapid rise as a global power, Chinese perceptions of the United States have undergone important changes as the United States is increasingly perceived by the Chinese as a great power in decline, both in terms of its hard and soft power. China watched closely as the ugliest forces of American politics nearly tore the nation apart. The 2016 presidential election seemed to confirm China’s perception that the United States is losing its battles both at home and abroad. Meanwhile, as China’s negative views of the United States came to a head in 2016, Chinese perceptions of the United States have experienced considerable changes. As the notion of the Chinese Dream became the dominant narrative of China’s political discourse, it seems increasingly likely that the political differences between the two nations will become more pronounced in the future, and the competition between China and the United States in terms of their respective models of development will become more intense. A safe prediction would be that as China’s distrust and disdain of American politics continues to grow, China will become more assertive in its reactions to American influence. It must be pointed out that this is not to predict that conflict between China and the United States is unavoidable. At least for China’s part, it is not yet capable of directly challenging the United States, as much as it still supports the current international norms with words and actions, despite the changes in China-US power distribution.

Meanwhile, no American president has ever walked into the White House with less political and policy experience than Donald Trump, and more than anybody in history, Trump has challenged the basic assumptions of China-US relations that proved true for the past forty years. While Trump prides himself on being unpredictable, strategic ambiguity, either by design or by accident, will only exacerbate mutual strategic distrust and instigate instability in the relationship. Therefore, China faces the challenges of guarding against volatile changes in China-US relations stirred up by a highly unpredictable and provocative American president. It also faces the challenge of managing its expectations for the prospects of China-US relations during the remainder of the Trump presidency. Although Trump’s presidency adds much instability and uncertainty to America’s policy in regard to China, there is still hope that the relationship will make progress under his watch. As America’s primary agenda-setter in foreign policy, President Trump has a great deal of influence over this process.

As China and the United States remain conscious of each other’s power and suspicious of each other’s intentions, the relationship is more likely to witness further deterioration until both sides come to the realization, as they did many times in history, that they have to reach a new “deal” or “framework” of mutual accommodation before things went out of hand. After all, the success of China’s national rejuvenation, as well as the fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promises, demands closer cooperation and less confrontation, whether willingly or grudgingly, from the two largest stakeholders in a chaotic world. Therefore, both countries need to focus more on long-term opportunities rather than short-term difficulties, while adjusting their perceptions of each other and redefining their roles on the global stage. Perhaps one way to escape the Thucydides’s trap, according to Graham Allison, the man who popularized the concept, is for leaders of both nations to have “a surge of strategic imagination as far beyond the current conventional wisdom in DC and Beijing as the remarkable Cold War strategy crafted by statesmen we now celebrate as the ‘wise men’ was beyond the consensus in Washington at the end of World War II.”⁷⁷ Before that happens, the future of the Sinoamerican relationship remains deeply uncertain, for better or worse.

       NOTES

      The author wishes to thank Xie Tao of Beijing Foreign Studies University, Diao Daming of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Suisheng Zhao of the University of Denver, for reviewing the chapter and offering helpful suggestions. The author acknowledges financial support from the Young Faculty Research Fund of Beijing Foreign Studies University (2015JT003). All Chinese texts and sources quoted herein were translated into English by the author.

1. Sina.cn, China’s leading online media, used Game of Thrones as the umbrella term for its election coverage, http://news.sina.cn/news_zt/2016-election?vt=4&sid=186663, accessed November 9, 2016.

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