Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, provides a wide-ranging overview of the Sino-American relationship early in the era of Xi Jinping in this excellent edited volume to which she contributes a chapter (with Yuan Peng) and a brief Introduction. Debating China consists of exchanges of correspondence between pairs of Chinese and Americans, with each scholar writing two letters responding to the other on assigned subjects. The volume winds up with a thoughtful Conclusion by James Steinberg. This work is suitable for classroom use in both China studies courses and general international relations and foreign policy classes, as well as for interested laypersons. Readers more deeply immersed in US–China relations will find value inasmuch as this collection illuminates the current thinking of leading experts in both nations on the topics at hand. Subjects addressed run the gamut from economic policies, trade, political development and security relations to human rights, global issues, Taiwan and Tibet.

Two striking things leap out at the reader of this book: the first is that, whether Chinese or American, the “correspondents” are looking for ways to achieve more cooperation in the overall Sino-American relationship, as well as in their specific policy domain. And yet, almost all of the chapters highlight how difficult cooperation (or even preventing deterioration in some cases) will be to achieve in actuality. The chapter on “Military developments” by Christopher Twomey and Xu Hui was dreary enough in its implications for the future when written – since then, Sino-American security ties have deteriorated, with mounting friction concerning the East and South China seas most notable. The tone of official Sino-American interactions has become shriller since the book's publication, though there are pockets of progress. Regional conflict of some scale involving China and American allies or friends, either by design or accident, is no longer a trivial possibility at the time of this writing in the summer of 2014. America conceivably could be dragged into an eventuality that is highly undesirable.

Second, the reader sees the deep-rooted perceptual and structural factors in both countries and in the international environment that make cooperation challenging: substantially commercialized traditional and online media in both countries embrace macro-stories that function as polarizing filters (and the Party propaganda apparatus in China is a further problem); interest groups in both societies often obstruct compromise and foster conflict; political leaders in both Beijing and Washington bolster their domestic legitimacy and political prospects by playing to the political grandstands; China's and America's ties to third parties catalyze conflict between the two powers, nowhere clearer than in their respective interactions with Japan and North Korea; and, most conflict inducing of all may be the national narratives embedded in both nations.

In America that narrative includes a sense of obligation to exercise “leadership” to bring peace, order and justice to the international system (“international public goods” in the jargon de jour). In China, the narrative includes a deep-seated sense of past injustice and “bullying” by the outside world, current entitlement and growing national strength. An important source of friction and danger is the mismatch in each country's perception of its own strength and intentions and that of the other. Americans generally see their country as currently troubled, but resilient, strong, benevolent and bearing the inescapable burden of leadership. For their part, the Chinese often portray America as a recidivist interventionist, externally spent with its most influential days behind it, and believe that China's comprehensive national power is mounting, despite all of the PRC's enormous challenges. Chinese almost unfailingly argue that their nation is “defensive” by nature, only parrying the thrusts of others. China's leaders apparently believe that if there is instability in the streets of China, the US Government would reflexively side with those articulating democratic aspirations, as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak found, and that one means Washington employs to be prepared to deal with such circumstances is to establish independent links with, and subvert, foreign militaries (pp. 19–20). All in all, in China there is a sense that America ought to pay attention to its own problems and leave China alone. As Yao Yang put it in his correspondence with Barry Naughton (p. 42), “I would have to say that the American government is moving too slowly to reform the American system.” These perceptions and beliefs could interact to produce tragic miscalculations in the Taiwan Strait, the East and South China seas, or in circumstances hard to foresee.

After reading the book's 253 pages, one cannot avoid the dark thought that the old mantra of “we need more mutual understanding” actually means for both sides: “Why don't you understand me more and change your behaviour?”

If one sorts this volume's chapters along the categories of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, which privileges physical survival and security needs, followed by economic and then self-actualization needs, one is struck by the fact that the deepest areas of policy conflict in US–China relations today are in the security realm. Today's mutual security anxieties will infect the economic and cultural dimensions of the bilateral relationship if left unattended, as James Steinberg notes in the “Conclusion.”

A notable feature of the emerging security competition between Washington and Beijing is seen in the security-related chapters (not least the Wu Xinbo and Michael Green contribution). Washington's policy of maintaining and strengthening the post-Second World War security alliance structure, with Japan playing a growing regional security role by its own wishes and Washington's policy, is deeply disconcerting to Beijing's leaders and China's citizens alike. Further compounding this development are rising and contending nationalisms throughout Asia (Japan, China, Vietnam, Philippines, India, and on the Korean Peninsula). All this does not augur well for stability in Asia and beyond. Beijing views Washington as stoking the nationalisms of its neighbours – building a coalition contrary to Chinese interests. For its part, Washington sees Beijing pushing its territorial claims and security concerns ever more vigorously, prompting US policy makers to seek ways to deter persistent Chinese pushing. Each side views itself as responding to the muscular actions of the other. If there is a silver lining in these dark clouds it is that American public opinion still supports “engagement” (p. 217).

Debating China also identifies hopeful considerations. After the December 2009 Copenhagen Conference imbroglio, climate change/energy policy in both countries has moved in more compatible directions, as both Kelly Sims Gallagher and Qi Ye describe in their chapter. “The July 2013 agreement between President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama demonstrates that climate change can be a fruitful area for US–China cooperation” (p. 112). In the development and investment area (the chapter by Elizabeth Economy and Zha Daojiong), both countries have potential synergies in cooperative development of technology, activities in third areas, and in foreign direct investment in each other. Another hopeful consideration is that local governments in both nations are fostering two-way foreign direct investment, as well as climate-relevant energy cooperation. This locality-to-locality cooperation represents one way to work around obstacles existing at the national level in both nations.

Turning to the chapter on Taiwan and Tibet by Jia Qingguo and Alan Romberg, the reader sees that cross-Strait economic integration and cooperation have made that situation manageable and constructive, at least for the presidential term of Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei. But, ever-unfolding democratic dynamics on Taiwan and the impatience of a growing China require continued vigilance by analysts and policy makers alike. There is an underlying fear in China that Washington harbours a strategic desire to keep Taiwan separate from China for as long as possible, with Jia Qingguo saying: “The United States wants Taiwan to remain separate from China, at least in the foreseeable future, for ideological, political, economic, and strategic reasons” (p. 179). If US–China strategic relations further deteriorate, this underlying Chinese suspicion will grow, potentially giving rise to more cross-Strait tension. Jia Qingguo clearly says that China will push harder in the future to get the US to disengage from Taiwan in terms of security ties – a weak China was more constrained, and restrained, than a strong China will be.

All in all, Debating China is an enlightening, sobering and well-crafted overview of a bilateral relationship about which one can never relax. It leaves the reader with a greater appreciation of both the obstacles and opportunities in US–China relations but, aside from the attempt in the chapter by Kenneth Lieberthal and Wang Jisi, does not bring us much closer to defining a shared vision for the relationship that can make the next 40-plus years as productive as the last 40-plus.