Regarding China, Pompeo is likely to offer more of the same mixed approach that has thus far characterized the Trump administration’s policy. On the one hand, Pompeo has endorsed the notion that China is an economic threat to the United States, and on the other hand, Pompeo has spoken positively of Xi Jinping, particularly with reference to China’s role in helping to place pressure on North Korea.

It’s a huge challenge and a great responsibility for policy makers and strategists on both sides to continue their predecessors’ efforts and halt any deterioration in this most important and consequential relationship in the world today.

Dividing the world into camps of “free societies” and “repressive regimes”, and proposing to collaborate with countries of similar values to deal with “repression”, sends a message that threatens to split the international community.

In recent weeks, Washington has stepped up its efforts to check Chinese maritime ambitions in the South China Sea. The Pentagon has stepped up its Freedom of Navigation Operations, while deploying Defense Secretary James Mattis to key Southeast Asian partners. With China emerging as America’s top national security concern, there are growing signs that the Trump administration’s South China Sea policy is finally taking shape.

Trump said the United States was considering a big “fine” as part of a probe into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump that the two sides must work together to find solutions to trade and economic disputes, state media reported.

To what extent are CFIUS decisions influenced by the Trump administration’s policy preferences? And how will a more aggressive CFIUS impact U.S.-China trade and Chinese investment in the United States over the medium-to-long term?

Why was the National Security Strategy Report so hostile to China?

For its first two decades the PRC was anathema to the U.S. Not until Mao’s death in 1976 could one imagine normal relations between the two nations. Today the Chinese people have opportunities and freedoms once unimaginable. U.S. policy should focus on the long-term, encouraging coming generations in China to take control of their future.

U.S. policy-makers must recognize that the most productive path forward is not to maneuver into constant conflict with China but rather to concentrate on our own competitiveness, to restore a sense of national unity, and to re-emerge from the current political cycle as an example of an open market democracy that others are both willing and able to emulate.