My topic today is China-US relations and China and US in Myanmar. Before I go into the US-China interaction in this country and how Myanmar is affected by China-US relations, I thought it would be useful to have a review a little of the broader context of ChinaUS relations today. I have been in Washington DC for 10 years and US-China relation is the topic that I spent a great deal of my time on. The two countries have just completed the sixth round of their strategic economic dialogue in Beijing. And the results of the dialogue is that a list of 116 items for bilateral cooperation.

The message that Washington and Beijing wants to send is that US and China are addressing their difference and are trying to maximize their cooperation. However is that narrative true?

In contrast to this friendly and collaborative narrative, the more prevailing will in both countries today is that US-China relations is not in their best shape, and there are many in Washington DC who sees the relationship as in the worst shape since 1989. Both sides are increasingly frustrated with the level of conventions and with the level of common understanding or even the common language in their dialogues. There are more dialogues than before, including the SMED, the militaryto-military cooperation dialogues. But the ability of both countries to convey their strategic messages and more importantly to convince the other side to accept their logics as well as to adjust their policies has accordingly decreased.

For the United States, China’s assertiveness is no longer a question or a debate, it is a fact. While China claims to rise peacefully, what has the US pursued? It is a clearly designed policy that combined with coercion, deterrence and enticement to advance China’s policy agenda. For Beijing, US has been on declined and the Obama administration has been entangled in domestic issues and has proved to be unwilling to enhance its foreign involvement. However, focusing on marine time disputes, China senses a heightened pressure from the US to either contain China’s rise or to restrain China’s behaviors and ambitions and through international rules and norms. There is an ongoing debate in the US about how to deal with China and China’s behaviors in this region is just or not has led to an increasingly loud voice that China’s rise has posed a direct threat to the US’s interests. And therefore, the US means to cut China’s capabilities. For those who believe primacy is the only way to ensure America’s security, China must accept US-led security order either willingly or reluctantly by US’s superior force and clear believe demonstrated results use of such force. Regardless of China’s intentions, the only way for the US to make sure China behaves likes a state of power is to maintain such kind of superiority so that China will have no other choice. The Obama administration so far does not accept this kind of logic, instead, the Obama administration believes that the global interdependence and cooperation will be sufficient to guarantee the US.

The question is not how to contain China’s rise but how to shape it, so that China could become a positive force rather than a threat. In other words, if China could develop in a way that makes China a beneficiary rather than a challenger, there is a possibility for constructive rather and cooperative relationship. On the other hand, the effort to maintain US’s presidency or undermined the prospect of such kind of cooperation. In other words, in this narrative, the cooperation between US and China is made possible only because the prayer’s dilemma is a repeated one. Since both countries will inevitably encounter many rounds of future interactions, cooperation will make sense to both sides and at least undermines the confrontations. So Obama’s China policy is not free of controversy, more and more, there are people feeling US does not take a decisive policy to deter China’s intention and assertiveness. It will become eventually a policy of peacement, it is irresponsible. Because in bordering China by doing nothing. Checking China’s behaviors at its earliest stage could prevent or delay the complex. In particular, a strong criticism of this policy is based on unpredictability of China’s intentions. Some people use the same examples that some years ago, China’s definition of core issues only include Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, but today, it clearly includes many kinds of disputes. There is no prediction or a way to predict China’s intention in the future when it grows even further. So what does that mean to Myanmar?

First of all, it means that China and US share a quite fundamental mutual distrust about each other’s intentions and actions in Myanmar. China generally believes that US’s engagement in Myanmar has been a key element on US’rebalancing to Asia, and US’s gains in Myanmar has more or less come at China’s expense. Although there is general acknowledgment of Chinese finger to benefit the relationship with Myanmar, in the Chinese sides this does not mean US has exploited the opportunities to expand and deepen the future between China and Myanmar. This will despise the US’s denial in finding Chinese and non-Chinese share. Free of China component. To be fair, the US policy initiated in Myanmar has been focus on Myanmar itself. The sense of transition to democracy to.