Obama to leave behind mixed policy legacy

US President Barack Obama's tenure will end next month, leaving behind eight years of roller-coaster China-US ties.

Facing the rise of a big country such as China, the Obama administration's China policy has been multi-dimensional and complicated. Obama established the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in April 2009 and the US-China High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange in November the same year. The two mechanisms have helped deepen mutual understanding even when bilateral ties soured. As such, they are a valuable institutional legacy of Obama.

Thanks to his visit to China in November 2009, Obama became the first US president to visit Beijing in the first year of office. He underplayed the issues of human rights and Tibet, paid greater attention to commerce and trade, and thought highly of Sino-US cooperation, prompting US think tanks to raise the concept of the "Group of 2".