Contents:

1. A Crossroads in U.S.-China Relations

2. The Essence of the Conundrum

3. The Agenda for Strategic Reassurance and Resolve

4. Defense Planning and Military Modernization

5. Contingency Planning

6. Strategic Issues: Space, Cyber, and Nuclear Matters

7. Communications, Reconnaissance, and Confidence Building

8. The Path Ahead

Notes

Index

Since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon opened diplomatic relations between China and the United States, the two countries have developed a relationship that has been generally beneficial to both parties, even after the Cold War. Economic engagement and a diplomatic partnership together with robust trade and investment relations, among other activities, have meant a peaceful context for China's rise and reform. This has helped to lift millions of Chinese out of poverty and has given the People's Republic incentive to work within the U.S.-led global order.

The logic of the relationship is now open to serious debate on both sides of the Pacific. After a period of American preoccupation with the Middle East, President Obama attempted a rebalancing of U.S. interests toward the Asia-Pacific region. With the Trump administration in office, the U.S.-China relationship appears to be on a tightrope: does it move back or go forward?

Here, following their 2014 book, Strategic Reassurance and Resolve, the authors provide a balanced assessment of the current state of relations and suggest measures that could help stabilize the security relationship, without minimizing the very real problems that both Beijing and Washington must address. They are hopeful, but also under no illusions, about the significance of the challenges now posed to the bilateral relationship, as well as to the regional order, by the rise of China and the responses of America togetherwith its allies.