China-US relations: Election rhetoric and ground reality

US President Barack Obama (R) welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington September 25, 2015. [Photo/Agency]

With the 2016 US presidential nominees campaigning at full tilt, foreign policy circles in Washington are abuzz with talk of the "China Threat", and domestic criticism of the White House's China policy has been heating up.

Although China-bashing has always been a "favorite pastime" of American presidential candidates hoping to get an edge during election season for decades, savage attacks on China of this magnitude are unprecedented.

Some argue that the China-US relationship has been on a downward spiral that has reached a turning point.

In fact, the harsh rhetoric against China is just the tip of the iceberg, and will not essentially change the dynamics of the China-US relations. What really matters is the underlying cause.

In recent months, with China's growing power and increasingly assertive foreign policy, there has been a heavy debate in Washington going on about the US's strategic policies toward China. A sort of strategic anxiety toward the world's second-largest economy has been on the rise among US policymakers and experts. They have been wondering if the White House's China policies for the past eight consecutive administrations are too soft. They call for the next administration to take on a stronger, confrontational approach toward China, and change its long-standing China policy from what has been centered on engagement to deterrence.

The debate is still a work in process, and will directly influence the next US administration's policies toward China.

As such, David M. Lampton, a leading China expert in Washington who has long held an optimistic view on the China-US relations, has warned that the China-US relationship is at a "critical tipping point" that gets closer to a cliff.

It is Washington's strategic anxiety toward Beijing, resulting from the aforementioned inherent contradictions between the two biggest economic powers that really matters to the dynamics of the China-US relations.