Doubts over US ties still biggest challenge for Beijing

Uncertainties over relations between China and the United States caused by trade frictions and issues related to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Hong Kong remain the biggest challenge for Beijing's diplomatic efforts next year, according to senior experts.

They said this was despite recent positive signs emerging from the trade talks with the US.

In a phone call on Dec 20, President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump set the tone for how Beijing and Washington should deal with their frictions after the two countries reached a phase one trade deal. Both leaders said this initial economic and trade agreement benefited China, the US and the whole world.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, the two countries are working on procedures, such as a legal review, translation and proofreading of the preliminary agreement regarding the phase one deal, and are closely communicating on follow-up measures.

Tao Wenzhao, a researcher with the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said he was not optimistic about Sino-US relations from a short term perspective.

Political parties in the US have reached consensus on two issues－that the US should adopt tougher policies toward China, and that neither country should "crush the other completely", Tao said.

He added that the political parties had not reached consensus on many other issues, such as whether China is an economic rival of the US, if a trade war could benefit or harm the US, and whether China wants to assume the US' dominant position on global affairs.

In June, an open letter to Trump and members of Congress signed by 100 leading US specialists on China, including scholars and former government officials, was published. It expressed deep concern over the growing deterioration of US relations with China, which it said "does not serve American or global interests".

Tao said that since the letter had been published, many US experts and former officials had expressed views that differed to those of their government.

"From the mid-and long-term perspective, we should not be pessimistic," he said, adding that China has witnessed a remarkable increase in its economic, technological and international influence, which means that the country is more capable of handling relations with the US.

Chen Fengying, a senior researcher on the world economy at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said Beijing should "increase its capability" of dealing with US relations.

Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies and dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the US is likely to adopt tougher and more confrontational policies toward China.

He told a seminar in the middle of this month that preventing China's rise is an issue that is being agreed on increasingly by political parties in the US.

Wu noted that the four high-level dialogue mechanisms on diplomacy and security, economy, law enforcement and cybersecurity, and social and people-to-people exchanges, set by the leaders of China and the US in April 2017, had all come to a stand still this year amid the tension caused by trade frictions.

The rise of emerging powers, especially China, had caused the US to fret about its power being weakened, so Washington had resorted to containment policies toward Beijing, Wu said.