Sino-American relations are most constructive within multilateral regimes such as APEC, following the logic of the neo-Liberal Institutionalist approach, although it is the Realist approach to international relations that has been the framework upon which Sino American relations have been constructed since the time of Dr. Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing. Since then, each time domestic politics have threatened to swamp bilateral relations, it is Realists on both sides that calculate where national interests lie and work to repair the relationship once again. The Sino-American rapprochement under cold war conditions positioned both sides to consider each other friends within the logic of the strategic triangle ending a long period when they had been enemies.

The post-cold war has introduced an era where the two countries are neither friends nor enemies, they both cooperate and compete, rendering the Realist approach less useful in a time that is more ambiguous although it continues to be the dominant paradigm in interpreting bilateral relations. It is the Realist approach that has produced perceptions of current structural problems in the relationship. American Realists obsess over China’s relative gains in its military and economic capabilities, referred to as “China rising,” even if China’s absolute gains are not an immediate threat to the U. S. Chinese Realists obsess over the U. S. as the sole superpower against which China can not find sufficiently powerful allies that could “balance” this American power. There is a psychological dimension to these obsessions that is generated by the Realist approach.