China and US must learn to walk in each other's shoes

• Source: Globaltimes
• [22:45 March 01 2010]
• Comments

Illustration: Liu Rui

By Patrick Mattimore

A recent editorial in the New York Times, "The Challenge of China,"published on February 10, shortly before President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, opined that China and the US must work harder to manage their differences.

The editors suggest how that should happen. According to them, China should behave more responsibly and stop manipulating its currency, has too many grievances, is being absurd when it protests arms sales to Taiwan, shouldn't threaten to punish the US, shouldn't be worried about Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, and is being shortsighted in resisting tougher sanctions against Iraq.

There are a few other "friendly suggestions" but the point is that nothing in the editorial speaks to managing differences so much as dictating policy.

Like a mirror of the American newspapers, China's newspapers have many suggestions how the US could accomplish the task of "bridging the gap" between the two nations, most of which boil down to nothing more than policy dictations of their own.

Our current foreign policies and the concomitant editorial advice seem destined to keep our two countries stuck in neutral, without moving forward.

Building bridges, strengthening ties and deepening rapport should be about mutual action. One side should not be expected to be giving its all while the other stands on the sidelines issuing demands. Like a well-performed waltz, both partners must make the maximum efforts, requiring subtle adjustments to bring the best out in one another.

No one expects that the world of tomorrow will look like the one of today. Although it's probably impossible for China and the US to put aside all their differences and completely realign priorities, it might be helpful for both nations to remember that very few, if any, essential issues today will be important in 30 years time.

But both China and the US are likely to be dominant nations in the coming years, so they need to figure out ways to prosper together.

One way to do that would be for both countries to literally exchange perspectives by stepping into each other's shoes. Schools already do that when they invite community leaders in to take over school administrative duties for a day. Our countries could expand that model.