The Relations Between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States (US)

The quality of the relationship between the United States of America (USA) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has undergone significant changes over the past decades. This chapter analyses three different phases of bilateral relations, characterized by competition (from 1949 to 1976), cooperation (from 1977 to 2008) and the current phase of ‘competitive coexistence.’ A common view is that the quality of the bilateral relationship will be characterized by a mixture of cooperation, competition and conflict. To be sure, both Washington and Beijing have acknowledged the problem of mutual mistrust, but have yet to develop sustainable ways of reducing them. That said, the US and China are not necessarily doomed to maintain relations prone to conflict if they are able to increase collaboration and limit the differences of how they define and pursue their respective interests.