Sino-US relations, a top priority of China's foreign policy for a long period of time, are the most vital bilateral ties in the country's foreign policy and have a crucial bearing on the overall situation with the Chinese foreign policy, which produces a significant influence on the world, as people often think of it this way.

The importance of Sino-US bilateral ties far exceeds this scope. It can be said that the situation with the bilateral relations can seriously affect the ways and degrees with how China's strategic goals are materialized. The country's development strategy, national reunification, and cultural progress and rehabilitation, are all subjected to the influence of existing Sino-US relations.

The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in 2002 mapped out a blueprint for China's strategic development, to build a relatively better off society in an all round day in the first 20 years of the 21st century. With China's rapid growth and apparent increasing impact on the world affairs, the international community has also obviously raised doubts on the country, since it cannot determine what foreign policy of such a non-Western nation like China would follow in years ahead and what impact it would bring to the politics, economics and the basic setup of the world. So the "China threat theory" has a market precisely due to the prevalence of such doubts, and there are indeed some political forces in the world which are maliciously spreading up the theory,

The course of history has decided that China has to underscore "peace" particularly in its development strategy, and this is a major reason for discussion of "peaceful rise" over the past two years, and also the fundamental reason for Chinese leaders to repeatedly explain and promise the country's adherence to "peaceful development".

The United States exerts its maximum pressure upon China, as people will query whether all issues in Sino-US relations, including the Taiwan question, can be resolved. A kind of interdependent, constantly-rising relations of competitions has been forged between China and the United States after more than three decades of contacts. Only by getting to know the existence and characteristics of this "competition", can people understand why the United States still keep up its plan for military deployment in East Asia on a large scale and in a sustained way, in a bid to slow down the modernization pace of China's national defense. East Asia is, after all, China's leading arena of activities. With its undoubtful, growing impact in the region, China will possibly inflict, to some degree, a force of impact upon the position of the U.S. Therefore, it can hardly avoid readjusting their respective position in the East Asia.

The external hurdle to China's national reunification comes mainly from the United States. The issue of national unity has always been a "core issue" and "core value" of political administration in the long-standing history of the Chinese nation. In history, China became powerful only when it put an end to the state of chaotic divisions and accomplished its national unity.

As known to all, the U.S. involvement constitutes a main obstacle to the settlement of the Taiwan issue and the accomplishment of ensuing national unity. Without an involvement of the United States, there would be no Taiwan issue today, a remark people in China has said or heard most often. As along as the United States does not cease its involvement in Taiwan issue, there is a risk for a possible major clash between China and the U.S.

Another grave issue China facing at present in its maintenance of its national unity has something to do with some people's ambiguous understanding of the relevant issues, as the United States' concept of value concept and political mode are spreading rapidly around the world, and some political forces in the U.S. often instigate and support these people in an open or covert way. Apparently, there is a great complex, long-term historical background for differences between China and the United States in the political and ideological sphere.

In the field of cultural development, the situation China has been facing since the beginning of the modern times is far more complicated than in any previous period in history. After the Opium War of 1840-1942, the Chinese nation was plunged into the abyss of sufferings and had fostered a strong sense of frustration. In the course of being thrown into a colonial and semi-colonial society, the Chinese people gradually came to realize that they were confronted with "an unexpected great change in thousands of years." Till today, they find themselves difficult to cope with the intrusion and influence of the culture from the Europe and the United States. The people in China are still thinking of exploring what kind of culture and civilization they would develop, though they were fully capable to defend their land with their flesh and blood in history.

It is an arduous, prolonged course for China to go in for the development of a modern culture. It still has not yet made a fundamental change and the country has difficulties in some aspects with politics of the contemporary world despite its substantial economic strength.

The tremendous force of impact of the American culture poses a big challenge and pressure for the growth of the Chinese culture today, whose rehabilitation can succeed only when it observes and merges with the world culture.

The period of reform and opening up represents a unique period in the development of the Chinese culture, which is somewhat related to the formation of the core value of the Chinese nation, the enhancement of the sense of national identity and the capability of scaling the world's advanced level in the field of cultural progress. From this sense, the in-depth significance contained in Sino-US relations will have a great impact on China's future.

Editor: Yan