Joseph Nye, distinguished service professor at Harvard University and former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs

China doesn’t pose existential threat to the US and the US doesn’t, either. If we can avoid miscalculation, there is no reason the system has to break down into war.

Pessimists talk about Thucydides’ trap, which I think is wrong. One of the most interesting things about the recent speech of US Vice President Mike Pence is that he said he does not aim to decouple China and the US. That’s very important. That means people who say China and the US are approaching a new cold war are mistaken.

In the real Cold War, there was almost no trade or basically no social contact between the US and the Soviet Union. China-US is different as there are 375,000 Chinese students in the US, so it is not a cold war.

In the overall relationship between China and the US, there is much more both countries gained from cooperation than just competition. There are bigger issues that both countries face, such as counterterrorism and climate change. There is no way that any one country can solve these issues alone.

Although the US under President Donald Trump’s administration quit the Paris climate agreement, I predict whoever the next president is, the US will rejoin as the climate issue becomes more and more important both to our lives and politics. Even if we have differences, we should overcome them and face all the areas that could lead to decoupling or poisoning the relationship. We should start focusing more on areas where cooperation is central to both countries and the world.