After the 6th S&ED, both China and the Unites States are striving to intensify the Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations. He Weiwen discusses the urgency for both sides to agree on the core issues and articles by the end of 2014 in order to promote consumer welfare and economic efficiency.

As the United States takes action, diplomatically and militarily, in the Asian region, the US has been seen as attempting to contain China. Justin Logan assesses this claim, and introduces the idea that the United States is indeed acting to contain China not so much economically, but militarily.

The recently concluded Strategic & Economic Dialogue, as well as the Consultation on People-to-People Exchange both provide opportunities for high-level annual institutional dialogue, writes Shen Dingli.

China and the US have reaffirmed the right approach to manage their differences in the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue and the High-level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange. However, both sides must translate their strategic consensus into actual policies. Some examples of policy areas deserving more attention include the Bilateral Investment Treaty, cooperation on climate change issues, and strengthened military-to-military relations.

Despite the recent U.S. indictment of PLA officials on grounds of cyber-hacking, Dan Steinbock argues that the only way forward is for both the U.S. and China to acknowledge the facts of the matter and sincerely work to enhance bilateral relations.

Whenever U.S. and Chinese government officials meet to discuss opportunities for cooperation on energy and climate change, those discussions often boil down to questions about timing, at least from the U.S. perspective.

The question “can we all get along?” as posed by Rodney King is echoed by Tom Watkins as he stresses that this sentiment should be applied to China-U.S. relations. Additionally, Watkins further stresses that the seeds for this cooperation already exist and the S&ED provides a forum to help foster this cooperation.

The upcoming China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue provides the perfect opportunity for the United States and China to effectively and efficiently cooperate on various issues that concern both nations’ interests individually, as well as collectively. Additionally, Wu Zurong believes that the U.S. should use the forum to scale back its seemingly hardline stance against China.

As the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue takes place, Zhang Zhixin discusses the current status of China-U.S. relations. Zhixin characterizes the U.S. as acting antagonistically toward China and cites various instances. He also emphasizes the importance of acting to quickly alleviate recent tensions between the two powers at this year’s S&ED.

As China and the U.S. prepare for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing from 9-10 July 2014, they might usefully conduct a mutual stock taking of what went so horribly wrong in their cyber relationship and what they can do to redress it.