By analyzing the history of rising and falling powers, China’s development since the end of the Cold War, and China-U.S. relations in the status quo a new type of relationship can be developed to foster cooperation and trust between major powers.

Increasingly harsh rhetoric and combative trade actions between China and the US have given rise to the belief both countries are inevitably headed toward a new Cold-War style confrontation. However this outdated Cold-War framework does not take into account the full extent of China-US ties and the shared incentives both countries have in seeing the other succeed.