BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
US-China relations have gotten off to a less than roaring start in the Year of the Tiger, but the venom of mutual incrimination can be avoided if both sides engage in some retrospection and put things in an historical perspective.
Indeed, the positive achievements of the world's most important bilateral relationship are so numerous, profound and complex, that it has become part of the landscape and second nature to younger generations who never experienced the frigid depths of the Cold War and the polarizing antipathies in which the global East and global West defined one another as the quintessential enemy.
While there's no space to enumerate the many people-to-people initiatives that made today's peaceful economic integration of two great economies possible, it is worth reminding ourselves that the rich and constant exchange of people and goods across the Pacific that we take for granted today was almost beyond imagination just a generation ago.
Because the mutual gains of economic interdependence and intellectual and cultural exchange have been such game-changers the accomplishments and sacrifices of previous generations may be obscured from view. Those who have contributed to US-China amity have built so sturdy an edifice that we find ourselves standing on a foundation of good deeds and accomplishments so massive that it is almost impossible to view as a whole.
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