In 2014, China-U.S. trade volume hit a record high of $590 billion. The United States claims that of the pair, China places more restrictions on foreign investment and is eager for China to open its market in industries such as financial service, agriculture and healthcare, all areas in which it is competitive. Meanwhile, the United States' reluctance to remove restrictions on hi-tech exports to China as well as its constraints on large Chinese state-owned enterprises' investment in the United States have ruffled feathers in Beijing and have influenced the official view on Washington's China policy. The United States did, however, pledge to facilitate exports to China of commercial hi-tech items intended for civilian uses.

At present, China and the United States have basically completed text negotiation on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). They will exchange proposed negative lists on which foreign investment is restricted by host countries and move onto talks on market access--the crux of the issue. Both are optimistic vis-à-vis the conclusion of BIT negotiations at the end of 2016.

While the 2015 S&ED was being convened, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to grant Obama greater authority in negotiating international trade deals, thus removing obstacles for the Obama administration in talks for concluding the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. The TPP, which excludes China, is a major pillar of the Obama administration's "Pivot-to-Asia" strategy and indicates to China that the United States is trying to regain its competitive edge in trade terms.

So how may one characterize the current state of China-U.S. relations? A tentative answer might be "not that good, but not as bad as the rest of the world believes." In the future, it will be a given that both intense competition and wide space for cooperation between the two nations will exist side by side. This will become the new normal. The fundamental challenge still lies in how both parties perceive each other's strategic intentions. A solution needs to be reached that will serve both countries' fundamental interests as well as the common interests of the world.

The author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review

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