China has reached a point in its economic and political development that requires an important adjustment of America’s view of the world.

The first step in that direction is acceptance of China as it is – and as it wants to be. Attempts to oppose China’s sovereign choices of society, and of its own future, will only lead to hostilities and waste of resources to create a world of peace and prosperity.

Starting from that premise, problems of trade, economics, politics and strategic balance among nuclear-armed countries can only be solved through negotiations and mutually acceptable outcomes.

The U.S.-China trade relations are a good example of that. We have there a case of wealth creation and technology transfers, despite large and systematic imbalances and apparently legitimate complaints about questionable trade practices.

U.S. should compete in a free and fair trade

In the first nine months of this year, the Sino-American bilateral goods trade came in at $526.8 billion, marking an annual increase of 13.4%, with China’s surplus soaring 22% from the year earlier to $309.2 billion.

That huge surplus was a result of China’s 16.4% increase in export sales to the U.S. and Beijing’s quasi stagnant purchases of American products. Worse, China’s U.S. exports were four times larger than American sales to China.

There is plenty here to raise serious concerns about the key issue in U.S.-China economic – and political – relations.

Indeed, China’s Premier Li Keqiang told the visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last Friday (November 4) that “economic and trade cooperation is the bedrock of bilateral relations.”

Now, what is the U.S. doing about that chronic U.S.-China trade imbalance and huge transfers of wealth and technology to its “strategic and systemic competitor,” and a “revisionist power” trying to upend the U.S. world order -- aka the “rules-based international order?”

The answer is – nothing. Instead of using U.S. trade laws and the World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitration panels to deal with allegedly illegal trade practices, Washington is attempting to block China’s access to advanced semiconductor devices.

It’s like trying to block sales of Germany’s “dual use” technologies to China in early 2000s, while Berlin continued to sell to Beijing its IT-driven manufacturing, ending up with a sale of a German robotics firm in 2017.

The causes of excessive and systematic U.S. trade imbalances with China must be discussed at an appropriate bilateral forum, instead of leaving them as a permanent irritant that eventually escalates to highest levels of inter-governmental relations.

China’s maritime borders and North Korean nukes

Similarly, in the realm of security and politics, “strategic ambiguities” of the Nixon-Kissinger era regarding the status of Taiwan have outlived their purpose. Semantics of the 1972 Shanghai Communique should not be stretched to the point of questioning China’s territorial integrity. That does not mean that, given the facts on the ground, the U.S. should not counsel against violent changes of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan has become the most sensitive U.S.-China issue as Beijing pursues its policies of “national rejuvenation.” Beijing obviously believes that time and history are on its side. There is, therefore, a space for diplomacy that Washington can use.

A nine-dash line China borders in the South China Sea is a much more complicated problem, because it involves vitally important air and sea lanes, as well as contested border claims by several Southeast Asian nations. China and its ASEAN (ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) neighbors are currently trying to finalize a “Code of Conduct” multilateral treaty to deal with territorial and freedom of navigation issues.

North Korea is another problem where China plays a key role. Existential threats to Pyongyang don’t work. They are just inflaming an already dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing has advised credible security guarantees and lifting of debilitating sanctions in exchange for North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and peace negotiations.

That is a long and difficult process. It has also become virtually unworkable since a new hardline South Korean government took over last May. The U.S. also seems to believe that China is not helping enough to calm tensions with Pyongyang. As a result, the Korean crisis is another problem that only Washington and Beijing can solve.

Rumors about preparations of a U.S.-China summit on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Indonesia on November 15-16, 2022, are welcome news, because that could set the guidelines (some call them “guardrails”) for subsequent discussions to lower the tensions and bring the relations back to a more productive path.

The U.S.-China peaceful modus vivendi is the most important issue of this century.