Which makes the next question: how much tactical flex is there on China's side? Here's where we have some space. I believe China can be deterred. The Chinese are not irrational people. If the U.S. keeps deterring them one day at a time and convinces China they will keep doing so, perhaps over time both countries can come to some understanding that lets all of us coexist.

So the burden is on the United States, its allies, and its friends to mount an adequate deterrent to Chinese mischief-making. Restore America’s physical power, display the resolve to use it under certain conditions, and make believers out of Beijing in U.S. power and resolve, and the Americans might yet pull this off.

As far as America’s general attitude toward an accommodation with China goes, let's take our guidance from Theodore Roosevelt: speak softly and with humor; carry a big stick and show you know how to use it; be absolutely inflexible on things that are non-negotiable while being flexible on matters of secondary concern. Bottom line, we are in a long-term strategic competition, but relations need not degenerate into something really bad if we clear our minds, agree on our purposes, and resolve to compete with vigor.

Check out other comments in this series from: Graham Allison, Gordon G. Chang, David Denoon, Michael Fabey, John Glaser, James Holmes, Lin Gang, Kishore Mahbubani, Robert Ross, Ruan Zongze, Robert Sutter, Xie Tao, Xu Feibiao and Wang Jisi. 

Lin Gang, Shanghai Jiaotong University Chair of the Academic Committee of the School of International and Public Affairs and Director of the Center for Taiwan Studies:

Looking into the near future of U.S.-China relations, a permanent state of competition seems unavoidable. For Beijing, trade conflict with the United States may hurt the Chinese economy, but the damage is manageable thanks to its growing  market for domestic consumption. Beijing does not want to have a trade war with America, but it will not give in easily either.

For Washington, President Trump is acutely concerned about the huge trade deficit with China and high-tech transference to that country. The administration’s resoluteness to push back against China is revealed in the U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, in which China is labeled as one of America’s major “strategic competitors.” For the first time since World War II the United States claims that “our competitive military advantage has been eroding.” Trump’s blaming of China as an “economic enemy” and his recent decision to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, followed by the unusual passage of U.S. warships through the Taiwan Strait amid the heightened tensions, convey a clear message.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s strategic importance to Washington has been reemphasized. Since the beginning of 2017, Washington has increased its security cooperation with the island, particularly in nontraditional spheres like anti-terrorism. Besides, the sale of a $1.42 billion arms package to Taiwan on June 29, 2017 is the first such sale under the Trump administration, which has surely overshadowed the Xi-Trump summit in April of that year and threatened to undermine PRC-U.S. relations.

In addition, the U.S. Congress has pushed for new resolutions to upgrade Washington-Taipei relations, enhance the security of Taiwan and bolster Taiwan’s participation in international organizations. Some proposals may lead to a port call by the U.S. Navy to Taiwan and sending uniformed Marines to the AIT in Taiwan. Another decision that would exert a serious impact on the cornerstone of U.S.-China relations is the Taiwan Travel Act (TTA), a breakthrough in Washington’s and Taipei’s unofficial relationship at the price of U.S.-China ties.

This does not mean that U.S.-China relations are doomed to be pessimistic as the two powers are comprehensively interdependent. In the words of Graham Allison, the two countries are in a state of mutual assurance of economic destruction (MAED). Strategically, without China’s cooperation, America can achieve only limited outcomes in global affairs. However, more efforts and dialogues are indispensable for crafting a working relationship between the two countries in the years to come.

Check out other comments in this series from: Graham Allison, Gordon G. Chang, David Denoon, Michael Fabey, John Glaser, James Holmes, Lin Gang, Kishore Mahbubani, Robert Ross, Ruan Zongze, Robert Sutter, Xie Tao, Xu Feibiao and Wang Jisi. 

Kishore Mahbubani, Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and author of Has the West Lost It?: 

George Orwell once famously remarked that “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” This aptly describes America’s struggle to understand its changing relationship with China. It is absolutely certain that within the next decade, China will become the world’s number one economy and America will become number two. The logical thing for American policymakers to do is therefore to prepare for becoming number two.

However, it may be psychologically impossible for America to do so. I learned this when I chaired a forum in Davos in January 2012 entitled The Future of American Power in the 21^st Century. During the forum, Republican Senator Bob Corker explained that “the American people absolutely would not be prepared psychologically for an event where the world began to believe that it was not the greatest power on earth.”

Since Americans are psychologically incapable of preparing for such a world, they will wake up with a rude shock when the IMF announces one day that America has become the number two economy. In this process, it is inevitable that Americans will react angrily and feel cheated by China. This political shock is predictable but unavoidable.

Yet, all is not lost. Unlike America, China is not aiming for global primacy. It only wants to secure peace and prosperity for its 1.4 billion people. As a result, even after China becomes number one, it will not try to dislodge America from its claim of primacy. China is quite happy to uphold the rules-based international order that America and the West have gifted to the world. As Xi Jinping said in Davos in 2017, “We should adhere to multilateralism to uphold the authority and efficacy of multilateral institutions. We should honor promises and abide by rules.”

In view of this, it is actually possible for America and China to achieve a new modus operandi with a philosophy of “live and let live”, in which neither America nor China challenges each other’s core interests. China will not try to displace America from regions that America values, like the Middle East. However, it would expect America to be sensitive to its core interests, like Taiwan. All these adjustments will require sensitive diplomatic negotiations. The time to prepare for them is now.

Check out other comments in this series from: Graham Allison, Gordon G. Chang, David Denoon, Michael Fabey, John Glaser, James Holmes, Lin Gang, Kishore Mahbubani, Robert Ross, Ruan Zongze, Robert Sutter, Xie Tao, Xu Feibiao and Wang Jisi. 

Robert Ross, Professor of Political Science at Boston College and Associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University:

U.S.-China relations are worse today than at any time since 1971, when Henry Kissinger visited China. And they will get worse.

Scholars and policy makers have long observed that rising powers and power transitions contribute to international instability and that the rise of China would be destabilizing. Over the past ten years, China has significantly narrowed the gap in U.S.-China capabilities in maritime East Asia, challenging American naval dominance. It should not be surprising that there is now heightened U.S.-China competition; the power transition is taking place in a region of vital security importance for both powers. Moreover, as this trend continues and the gap continues to narrow, tensions between the U.S. and China will increase.

China’s rise has contributed to its impatience to improve its security in East Asian waters. Surrounded by U.S. alliances and military bases, it has challenged the regional security order. It has carried out a rapid build-up of its navy, island building and oil drilling in the South China Sea, coercive policies against South Korea and Philippines in retaliation for alliance cooperation with the United States, and challenges to the maritime sovereignty claims of Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Chinese policy has been effective; American allies have begun to distance themselves from U.S. initiatives that challenge Chinese interests. Not content to allow China to erode U.S. maritime dominance, the United States has responded with a range of counter measures, including the pivot to East Asia, assignment of a greater percentage of navy ships in East Asia, frequent and high-profile naval challenges to Chinese maritime claims, and the development of the Indo-Pacific strategy.

Predictably, U.S. initiatives have not curtailed rising China’s efforts to reshape the strategic order of rise nor stabilized U.S. alliances. China’s naval modernization and ship-production rate continue to close the gap in U.S.-China capabilities, contributing to further Chinese activism and heightened concern among American allies over the effectiveness of U.S. defense commitments. As U.S. naval dominance continues to erode and its alliance system experiences greater pressure, the United States will respond with stronger strategic initiatives designed to constrain Chinese activism and reassure our allies of its resolve to balance China’s rise. The power transition will continue, and, as China approaches naval parity, tensions will intensify.