As the Trump administration comes to power and U.S.-China trade disputes continue to expand, the changes in the international power structure have become an issue that China have to face. Perhaps the most striking of these changes is the change in U.S.-China relations. The so-called "engagement" strategy has been the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward China since the two countries established diplomatic relations despite some fluctuations. However, since the Obama administration introduced the policy of strategic rebalancing of Asia, there has been a clear shift in U.S. policy towards China. Such strategic rebalancing is essentially a process by which the U.S. shifts its diplomatic resources and foreign policy focus from Europe and the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific. The Obama administration took note of China's rising national power, but there was no consensus at the time on how to respond to this structural change. Therefore, this strategic rebalancing of Asia is actually a foreign policy platform. The Indo-Pacific Strategy is the latest product to emerge in such platform, with a strong sense of "containing China". On this basis, competition and confrontation are becoming the centerpiece of U.S.-China relations.

Thus, how should China adapt to this change? First of all, China should realize that despite China has achieved remarkable achievements in recent years, there is still a huge gap between China and the United States in terms of overall national strength. This means that China still needs to avoid a comprehensive confrontation with the United States. However, from another perspective, China has become a remarkable force in the international landscape. Its foreign policy needs to match the nation's overall strength. Therefore, in the face of different strategic issues, China first needs to establish a logical connection between specific issues and national interests on the basis of a clear understanding of national core interests, and insist on dealing with the issues on a case-by-case basis. In dealing with the United States, China should avoid unnecessary confrontations though it should never compromise on its core interests. In other words, China has to invest limited resources in the most critical areas.

First of all, on issues concerning the nation's core interest, China needs to uphold its principles and defend its positions by any necessary means. Broadly speaking, China's core interests mainly include national sovereignty, territorial integrity and the stable operation of the socialist system in China. Regarding the former, it is undoubtedly the most central appeal of China's foreign policy and that of all countries, and China should never compromise on any diplomatic issue that threatens this core interest. The latter, in essence, is a "domestic matter" in China, which should not be intervened by outsiders. However, the problem is that although specific diplomatic issues may rise to the strategic level through "chain reaction" and indirectly affect the core interests, blindly linking of all issues to the core interests will greatly compress China's policy space and eventually lead to the comprehensive confrontation between China and the United States.

Specifically, it is worth noting that the U.S.'s foreign policy tends to have a "tentative" characteristic. American foreign policy often derived from some kind of trial and error on the effectiveness of specific policies. When a certain policy works well on a specific issue, the U.S. government tends to expand and elevate the policy to a strategic level. The most obvious example is the impact of the 2001 Afghanistan war on overall Middle East policy. When the United States succeeded in overthrowing the Taliban with a small number of special forces, navy and air force, as well as the cooperation with local opposition forces, this "regime change" approach began to appeal to American leaders and was quickly extended to Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Therefore, China should make clear to Washington what Beijing's "bottom line" is.

To achieve this effect, China needs to start from two aspects. On the one hand, if a certain issue directly concerns its core interests, it needs to maintain a very clear attitude. The most typical example is the Taiwan issue. After years of exchanges, Washington knows full well that China will never allow the independence of Taiwan. This explains why successive U.S. administrations have never dared to challenge the "One-China" principle of the Three Communiqués, despite their continued ties with the Taiwanese authorities. On the other hand, while upholding its principles, China also needs to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the U.S. on some non-core issues. The reason is, firstly, that the whole process of American foreign policy is open and diverse. Different people have different concerns and positions on U.S.-China relations. Adopting a confrontational attitude towards all issues in U.S.-China relations would help the U.S. build policy consensus and gradually turn this consensus negative. It would also provide an opportunity for the U.S. to build an "anti-China alliance" in the international arena. In addition, the cooperation between China and the United States on certain issues will also help China achieve further development. Similar issues include the protection of intellectual property rights, the gradual expansion of market access, the creation of a fairer market environment, environmental protection, the protection of minorities, and the promotion of democracy. One thing we have to realize is that not all of the international discontent is groundless or motivated by "containing China" strategy. Take the protection of intellectual property rights as an example. As ANBOUND has pointed out before, the protection of intellectual property rights is a general trend. In fact, there is room for cooperation between China and the U.S. on this issue. The cooperation between the two countries in this issue does not necessarily threaten China's core interests, but may even promote the development of bilateral relations and shape more friendly forces towards China in the United States. On the contrary, a similar approach to the Taiwan issue would undoubtedly compress its policy space and eventually lead to an all-out confrontation between the two countries, which would do nothing but harm. History has proven that "pan-ideological" diplomacy is often the most irrational diplomacy. Only by defining the boundaries between core interests and general issues can China devote its limited resources to the most important areas, so as to build effective deterrence in the future U.S.-China relations, thereby achieve the "coopetition" between the two countries and gradually bring the bilateral relations back to the track of cooperation. Otherwise, the competition will gradually replace cooperation and eventually develop into a comprehensive confrontation.

Final analysis conclusion:

In the face of the "great changes" in U.S.-China relations, it is not appropriate for China to deal its relations with the United States passively, nor should it have the attitude of treating the U.S. as a "hostile Western imperialist power that aims to destroy China". China needs to adjust its thinking,prudently handle rather than intensify the disputes. It also needs to allocate its policy resources in a selective and focused way. It is necessary to step back from to avoid "comprehensive confrontation", and instead China needs to make selective measures so as to facilitate the transformation of U.S.-China relations from "confrontation" to "coopetition" and thence "cooperation".