Dialogues and Their Implications in Sino-American Relations

This article briefly reviews the role exchanges and dialogues have played in U.S.-China relations since President Nixon's visit to China in 1972, and examines in more detail the process, significance and outlook of recent dialogues. The overall record of dialogues shows that they are important instruments in the policy 'tool kit' of each side to deal with salient areas of common interests and disagreement that have broadened in scope as a result of China's rising international importance and the increasing salience of an ever wider range of issues in U.S.-Chinese relations in the 21st century. Both sides view these policy instruments positively; they serve as shock absorbers in periods of difficulty, provide the basis for actual or potential channels of informal communication in times of crisis, and promote efforts to broaden common ground in U.S.-Chinese relations. The checkered record of military exchanges is among the array of evidence showing the reality that dialogues are subservient to the respective interests of the leaders on either side. Dialogues are instruments of improved relations but they do not compel improvement, which at bottom is decided by policy elites in Beijing and Washington. After forty years of efforts to normalize U.S.-China relations, those elites cooperate closely on a wide range of issues but also reflect wariness toward one another that underlines important diverging interests and differences dividing the two powers.