U.S.-China relations seem more strained than any time since Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai signed the Shanghai Communiqué in 1972. China's ancient sense of superiority – which, during the last dynasty, led to decay and obscurantism in confronting the modern world – appears almost overnight to have been discovered once again. Clearly, the leaders as well as the people of the Middle Kingdom are feeling their oats.
But their geopolitical goals and strategies have not changed fundamentally despite their new wealth. Taiwan is the main question on which they're pushing the United States, but the dynamics of this issue are the most positive in decades.
