Growing strategic rivalry distracts from cooperation

Returning to Washington this week after a month-long vacation in Shanghai, I found myself struggling to adjust, not only because of serious jet lag, but also because of the mood in this political town.

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, two senior US officials from the State Department and Energy Department tried to convince lawmakers that renewing the bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement is in the best interest of the United States, but some lawmakers seemed unconvinced. They instead voiced their suspicions that China would apply US civil nuclear technology for military purposes and engage in nuclear proliferation.

Bilateral civil nuclear cooperation would be win-win cooperation helping China to develop its civil nuclear power to meet its energy needs and fight climate change, while creating many high-paying US jobs and helping US companies such as Westinghouse from becoming irrelevant to the vast China market.