Reassurance is a two-way street

The United States should take concrete and positive steps to give shape to the "strategic reassurance" concept recently put forward by a top US State Department official for developing relations with China.

At a speech on China-US relations delivered at the Center for American Security in Washington on Sept 24, US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg proposed the new approach under which China and the US cooperate in managing the effects of China's rise as well as in grappling with a wide range of issues of global significance.

"Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain. Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China's 'arrival', as you all have so nicely put it, as a prosperous and successful power, China must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others," Steinberg said.