China must prepare for new challenges

China's foreign policies have achieved much success in the past two years, but it still faces a diverse range of new challenges.

Driven by the growing economic ills of the United States and China's unbalanced economic development, the Sino-US trade row has mainly been characterized by the unfavorable trade balance of the US. It has also been increasingly politicized amid efforts to convince the American public that "China is the world's factory" and "China practices unfair trade".

The China-US strategic economic dialogues since late 2006 have achieved some positive results but are apparently not nearly enough to stop protectionist forces in the US criticizing China.