Every reason for China, US to work together

China-watchers in Washington have lamented the lack of a presidential speech on China for some time. So the Brookings Institution invited seven scholars last week and asked them to put themselves in the shoes of US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and prepare such a speech.

The discussions led by Brookings Vice-President Bruce Jones on "Avoiding war: Containment, competition and cooperation in US-China relations" are indeed interesting - some insightful, others just implausible.

While most of the scholars underscored the need to cooperate with China and clearly define what Washington's interests are in its relationship with Beijing, Robert Kagan, a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings, saw "conflicting interests".