New perspective for Sino-US relationship

By Joseph Christian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-27 09:31

He stood in the cold crisp November air pointing at a section of the Great Wall that snaked up the snow-dusted mountains north of Beijing as reporters buzzed about, with pens at the ready, just waiting for US President Barack Obama to drop a quotable gem.

Finally, Obama turned and told reporters at the Great Wall, "It gives you a good perspective that a lot of day-to-day things we worry about don't matter so much." What a timely thing to say.

It has now been a little over a week since the media "fan fare" that followed Obama left the shores of the Middle Kingdom and much of China has gone back to the normal daily grind of life.

Yet, as Obama's quote tumbles around in my head, it is my hope the relationship between my country, America, and China does not return to such a daily grind.

While last week everyone from my students to Chinese officials beamed with excitement and trumpeted the relationship between China and America with kind words like, "genuine partners" and "moving forward together", how will such sayings hold up in the face of reality?

Sadly, reality can be a bit depressing considering that disagreements between America and China over trade surpluses and currency valuations loom in the near future as the G20 nations continue to grapple with ways to pull the global economy out of the current financial crisis.

Also, won't China and US bump heads on the best way to improve deadlocked talks with Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Maybe so, but if what Obama said on the Great Wall holds any truth then maybe those differences really don't matter if we look at the perspective of time.

In the long term, the relationship between China and America has a lot more things going for it than against it, so let's not get caught up in our "day-to-day" differences.

Consider that America is the biggest marketplace of Chinese goods and China is its bank. Consider that neither of our countries is keen on having extremist terrorists blow themselves up within our borders. Consider that both of our people live in a world that is threatened by pollution.

If we consider the perspective of how the future can be molded based on the shared interest and respect between our nations, I see no reason to build a wall out of our differences.

When the flags, anthems, slogans, and politics of our nations are stripped away, I think we will find we both want the same thing ... a brighter future.

As the saying goes: "Two heads are better than one", so what are we waiting for?