By Li Hongmei People's Daily Online

In stark contrast to his predecessors in the Bush administration, who managed to arm-twist China into moving faster to appreciate its currency, the current U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, wrapped up his first visit to Beijing Tuesday by taking a softer tone. He even failed to raise any contentious issues in public, instead, he extolled Beijing's efforts in managing and stimulating its economy, and vowed to press for a greater role for China in the International Monetary Fund.

When addressing an audience at the prestigious Peking University, where he had studied Mandarin years before, Geithner went so far as to state the U.S. was ready to give up its conventional strategy, or the 'complaint diplomacy,' toward China in order to be more 'catch-up.' The remarks came at a vulnerable time for the Obama administration, when the economy gets mired in a brutal recession and the U.S. leverage has waned. Thus, that the chief U.S. economic policymaker went hat-in-hand to the Chinese to seek some help seems fairly understandable in view of hastening an end to the global downtrend.

But many Chinese may still keep a vivid memory that not long ago the same Geithner blamed China for manipulating its currency to gain trade advantages and even suggested tough penalties on China. The abrupt U-Turn made in his attitude to China seems to indicate the U.S. is considering a shift in its foreign policies to China, in that the grim economic scenario has prompted Washington to recalibrate the set pattern formed since 1980s of the Sino-U.S. relations, featuring a diplomatic chessboard on which the U.S. has invariably acted as the active player, pressing China for response. Now, both are playing in the interactive way.

Be that as it may, there are still hurdles standing out and perhaps insurmountable if the U.S. is sincerely gearing up for upgrading Sino-U.S. relations this time. For China, the ups and downs seen in the subtle strategic relations with the U.S. are already of a normal course. Hence, the goodwill gestures made recently by the American side will by no means make China and the Chinese people over drunk in a sea of flowers, now that they cannot afford to disregard thistles and thorns. 'Sino-U.S. relations are rosy but rocky,' as said in a newspaper article.

On her debut tour as U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton made a complete shift in her attitudes to China from finger pointing and fault finding when she was the First Lady to reaching out for cooperation. And she even suggested a deeper and closer bilateral ties by describing the relations between China and the U.S. in an endearing metaphor, saying both countries are 'crossing the river in the same boat, going up and down together.' But she again sharpened her tongue Thursday deploring China on the events of June 4 two decades ago, regardless of China's basic national conditions and the facts that China has made great advances in economic and social development over the 30 years--- a point of no small pride for the Chinese people both at home and abroad.

In the backdrop of the sweeping economic sluggishness, the U.S. is trying to forgo its mentality of saber-rattling and confrontation born of ideological disparities and inveterate prejudices. On top of that, the new U.S, administration will also have to weigh over losses and gains in dealing with its relations with the emerging economies, in particular, with China. China is already the U.S. government's largest creditor and the largest foreign provider of the manufactured goods to the U.S. That explains why policymakers on the American side unanimously deem it a critical step that deserves their efforts to push for greater cooperation with Beijing. Grappling with the economic meltdown, they are in an urgent need of a rescue hand from China.

Needless to say, after the original international economic order is shattered, the U.S. is facing a tough undertaking to rebalance its economic structure, and for the time being, to curb the nosedive economy in order to harbor its 'American Dream'. China, as the largest developing country, is bent on fulfilling the 'Chinese Dream' to play a weight-carrying role in building up a new world order. But the goals sought after by both sides are not something incompatible like fire and water. As stated in a consensus reached in April at the London G-20 Summit by the Chinese president Hu Jintao and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, Sino-U.S. relations will proceed to develop into a more active and all-round cooperation in the new era.

In this regard, the decisive factor defining the healthy bilateral ties in future is none other than an improved and enhanced strategic mechanism for mutual trust, with the priority placed on the 'core interests' of each other.