Visit shows shift from 'zero-sum' approach

Shortly after landing in Shanghai on May 21, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a page out of Chinese President Hu Jintao's diplomatic playbook.

On her stopover before the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing, the highest-ranking official in the Obama administration in charge of US foreign policy sought a dramatic change in relations between the two nations.

Clinton called for a move away from relations built on traditional "zero-sum" game of power politics, often associated with the Cold War mentality of the past USSR-US rivalry, to a "win-win" strategy whereby both countries seek mutual and complementary benefits. Although some in the US still remain unclear on how to deal with the emerging economic and political power of China, the "win-win" view underlying President Hu's Peaceful Development policies are now apparently shared by Barack Obama's administration. In an attempt to build the "strategic" trust necessary to transition from a "zero-sum" to a "win-win" world view, the two nation's leaders established the S&ED with the hope of building understanding and developing mutual respect in the core interests of both countries.