"Work with China, Don't Contain It" wrote Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in the New York Times. Nye is a Harvard professor and former assistant secretary of defense, as well as a famous advocate of "soft power." What impressed me was his smooth baritone voice, and I actually commented on it when my wife was a fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, class of 1984. He was puzzled and replied, "Is that a compliment?"(Or just a back-handed jab?)

Either way, his is a very sensible and straightforward advice for the Obama administration. Containment is outdated. George Kennan himself regretted that successive U.S. administrations had opted for a military, rather than political, containment of the Soviet Union.

As Jo Nye pointed out, China is not like the former Soviet Union. It is not seeking global hegemony and does not want to overthrow a world order dominated by the U.S. because it is a beneficiary of that precise order. It only wants to change those parts of that order that are unfair to developing countries. Above all, it has vast, intricate and growing trade and economic relations with the U.S. which are mutually beneficial. The former Soviet Union never had that kind of relationship with the United States. China's rapid growth serves as a vital engine, driving the world economy forward. And Washington knows that.

Jo Nye also mentioned that "the world's two largest economies have much to gain from cooperation in the fight against climate change, pandemics, cyber-terrorism and nuclear proliferation." To this list, I would also like to add Islamic terrorism and transnational criminal activities such as drug trafficking.

Nevertheless, China has reason to be wary of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia and the Pacific," which carries a very considerable military component in it; Washington is aiding and abetting Tokyo's resurgent militarism.

Just as Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell was calling for "cooler heads" in the dispute over the Diaoyu Islands, Hillary R. Clinton's parting shot was somewhat more reckless when she declared not only that the U.S.-Japan Security Pact applies to China's Diaoyu Islands, but that "the U.S. would oppose any unilateral action that would undermine Japan's administration of the islands." This stood in glaring contradiction to her statement that the U.S. held no position on the islands' ultimate sovereignty. She was, of course, speaking in name of the administration.

Mutual trust was obviously lacking when Washington played hard ball by blocking Chinese investments in the U.S. Washington, on the pretext of national security, scuttled Sany Group's desire to acquire a wind farm in Oregon and Superior Aviation Beijing Co.'s proposal to buy Hawker-Beechcraft. A congressional report also warned that China's Huawei and ZTE telecom companies could pose security risks. Huawei already had a prior history of its proposed acquisitions of American companies being shot down by U.S. regulators.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York (my wife, a New Yorker, did not vote for him) even asked the administration to block the acquisition of Canada's Nexen Inc. by China's Cnooc. He failed. The Canadian government in the end did go on to approve that takeover.

In addition, Washington has frequently resorted to anti-dumping and -subsidy penalties against Chinese companies.

It is to the credit of Washington that it did not designate China as a currency manipulator. Exchange rates hardly play a role in America's trade imbalance with China. It is the U.S. prohibition of high-tech equipment exports to China that constitutes a contributing factor. The recent declaration of relaxation of control, unfortunately, does not apply to China.

In spite of friction, the cooperation sphere between China and the U.S. is enormous. Nye's suggestion that the U.S. help China develop domestic energy resources, such as shale gas, sounds interesting and recent developments in hydraulic fracturing technology, especially in the field of horizontal slickwater fracking, look very promising. It may even change the overall picture of the entire global energy supply.

Let's hope our two great nations can cooperate and compete. Not fight.