| Abstract: | Chinese President Hu Jintao’s four-day (January 18-21, 2011) state visit to the U.S. together with the Hu-Obama summit is an epoch-making event of far-reaching global significance at the start of the second decade of the 21st century. It has opened a new chapter in China–U.S. relations in the direction of a cooperative partnership based on mutual respect (for each other’s core interests) and mutual benefit that has resulted from mutual adaptation and accommodation (thereinafter MAA). This demands reversing each other’s position and putting one’s foot into the other’s shoes. The historic summit has also brought a halt to the heavy storm that engulfed the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) in 2010 and put to rest modern Cassandra’s prophesy about a new Cold War between the two great powers. This article traces the source of the storm to the lack of MAA among nations that has led to strategic misperceptions and rash over-reaction. In our rapidly changing world, every country has to adapt to the transformed globe and to each other through mutual accommodation, thus adhering to the global trend of peace, development and cooperation. At the same time, China also needs to draw lessons from its unforeseen diplomatic setbacks in the APR in 2010 and do fence-mending accordingly. The impact of the just-concluded China-U.S. summit on the APR and beyond will also be addressed. |
