The Sino - US Economic Diplomacy Since The Reform And Opening - Up (1978-2012)

To grasp the international orders in 21st century, we must study China-US relations firstly, for China-US relations is the theme of the 21st century international relations. To observe the trend of China-US relations, what is most importance is to understand the development of China-US economic relations, and to study China-US economic diplomacy is vital for grasp China-US economic relations tendency in international politics research.The core cue of China-US economic diplomacy is the mutual activities between the up-rising country and status quo-keeping country. The structural characteristics of China-US economic diplomacy consists of three factors, namely, mutual benefit in economics based on vertical international distributions, asymmetrical development based on economic interdependence, mutual activities based on up-rising country and status-keeping country. Three of them are also become environmental constraints.USA is at the upstream in international division of labor, has advantages in interdependence, so has always been the active player, and China has always been the responsible player. However, from the international system angle, USA is at the conservative side, and China is at the rival in rising up. Gathering resources and capacities, China is much more active and has more bargaining power in bilateral relations. USA is still at the advantageous position, although such structural factors in China-US economic diplomacy has stealthily been changing, namely the bilateral economic interdependence is asymmetrical obviously in investment, finance sectors but in trade. On the other hand, changes have been extending to investment and finance sectors. There are institutionalization channels in bilateral macro-economy coordination, and global governance collaborations are on fermentation within bilateral systems, and sometimes play a leading role in multilateral dialogue.China-US economic diplomacy could be divided into four steps according to the development of institutions. The initialization period is during 1978-1988, where MFN and bilateral trade agreement set up the basic institutions in bilateral economic diplomacy. The normalization period is during 1989-2000,where economic relations is partly immunization to politics, and PNTR has been in place of MFN, both sides signed the agreement on China access to WTO. The institutionalization period is during 2001-2007, where different levels institutions have been established, including SED at the top level and WTO at the floor level. The inclusive period is during 2008-2012, where China acknowledged in 2011 in S&ED the importance of international orders led by USA in the world economy, which is matched with USA acknowledgement in 2006 that China is one stockholder of the current international system. A newly inclusive economic diplomacy is emerging in bilateral relations, which may bring bilateral relations into brand new economic relations among big powers.Such new big powers economic relations between the conservative one and rising up side lie in three levels. At first, it is totally different from the ones before Word War I when big powers fell into fights. Secondly, it is different from relations between the Soviet Union and USA, they with different domestic economic systems, finally came into cold war and agents hot wars. Thirdly, it is also different from the relations between Japan, German and USA, for that they share common domestic economic systems and are interaction in the same international economic system at the beginning. The new economic big powers relations take on such characteristics, has paved a brand new way to totally new big powers relations.China-US economic diplomacy in the past 35 years proved that bilateral interaction model, namely, US’s engagement diplomacy and China’s Opening up diplomacy is rational. Both sides have benefited from persisting in, keeping from such a model.US conservation and China’s changing request as a rising up member in international system will be existing for a long time if no accidents. China’s GDP is 51% of US one, and can catch up with USA in 10 years at least if they keeping current growth rate, and more than 100 years is no surprise. Emergence of symmetrical interdependence for China needs much more time. China’s capacities for providing international public goods are very limited, let alone such public goods supplied by China are universal or specific. China’s rising up not only lies in GDP but also depends on capacities of providing public goods in international community. Engagement and opening up interaction model is crucial for both sides, especially for China.