On October 25, 2019, SIAS held a roundtable discussion on China-US relations. Michael D. Swaine, senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), attended the meeting and gave a keynote speech titled “Stopping the Downward Slide in U.S.-China Relations”.  

Mr. Swaine noted that the US tended to overreact to a more muscular and assertive China, which cries for a more realistic, balanced, more competitive, yet mutually beneficial form of engagement. This type of modified engagement should involve clearer red lines, more credible efforts at both deterrence and reassurance, a deliberate effort to balance, not dominate, in Asia, and perhaps most importantly for the short term, a more robust Track Two effort to deepen US-China crisis management capabilities.

Academics from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) joined SIAS research staff at the meeting. They shared their insights with Mr. Swaine on current China-US relations and other hot-spot issues in international politics.