Incremental improvements

Strategic mutual trust between China and the US can be accumulated and built through cooperation on specific issues

Back in the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping observed that China-US relations must be based on mutual trust or they could not move forward. Thirty-odd years have passed, but the trust between the two countries still remains elusive. In March 2012, the Brookings Institute released a report by Ken Lieberthal and Wang Jisi entitled "Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust", in which they studied the two countries' mutual distrust of each other's long-term intentions. In May 2013, Vice-Minister He Yafei of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of China's State Council published in Foreign Policy an article entitled "Trust Deficit", pointing out that the root cause of China-US frictions and differences lies in their huge "trust deficit".

Many in the two countries are well aware that the lack of strategic trust poses an obstacle to China-US relations, and has become the biggest obstacle to their growth. Many issues have caused the lack of mutual trust. But the two countries also have a high degree of interwoven interests, as well as a real need to work together in addressing issues relating to the economy, environment, security and other common challenges to mankind.