A stage for cooperation, not an arena for conflict

The annual China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the eighth of its kind, comes as a timely reminder that despite bitter bickering and their frequent exchange of barbs over the South China Sea, the world's two largest economies still have many common interests where they are working constructively together - global warming, cyber security, nuclear nonproliferation, trade and economic cooperation, among others.

The interactions conducted, agreements made, and differences aired during the two-day dialogue, which ends on Tuesday, will largely shape the course of China-US relations in the immediate future. Hopefully, the talks will help clarify each other's intentions.

Much discord in bilateral ties has resulted from suspicions about each other's intentions. As the rise of China has affected the global balance of power, some in the US worry whether China will continue to rise peacefully. They tend to buy into the "China threat" fallacy and see every move by China as a challenge to the US' primacy, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Some in China also view every move by the US in Asia as an attempt to contain China's rise.