Finger pointing not the way forward

A year ago, Chinese and US government officials worked around the clock to prepare for the fifth China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, a meeting that was expected to match the upbeat tone set by Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama at their shirt-sleeves summit in Sunnylands, California.

It was a tone for a new type of major country relationship aimed at avoiding conflict and confrontation by expanding cooperation and effectively managing their differences.

The strategic track of last year's S&ED, for example, produced an outcome document that included 91 areas for further cooperation. The two largest economies also pledged to promote a comprehensive economic relationship based on mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation, with China's commitment to enter substantive talks on a Bilateral Investment Treaty based on a negative list approach the major outcome. A subsequent pledge for further economic reforms made by the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee has been widely hailed as significant for China, the United States and the world.