Few disagree that despite their low level of mutual trust, the U.S. and China should strive for cooperation on shared interests. Governments generally do not pursue cooperation against national interests, and given all at stake economically and geopolitically, Washington and Beijing work to avoid outright conflict in areas of disagreement. However, Yan Xuetong (“The Problem of ‘Mutual Trust,’” November 15) unfairly dismisses the importance of trust by treating it as a binary concept, as if two countries either have trust or not. Better to consider trust as a continuous variable that can spiral up, yielding greater cooperation and even more trust; or spiral down, yielding less cooperation and even less trust. My research suggests that positive spirals are driven by shared political values and negative spirals by conflicting values. U.S.-China mutual trust declined after 1989 because of conflicting values over human rights; trust improved after 2001 because both sides valued a stable, free trade order that was threatened by ideological extremists. The next chapter of U.S.-China relations will be written in a time of improving or deteriorating trust, depending on whether leaders in Washington and Beijing hold increasingly shared or conflicting beliefs about good governance.
Leif-Eric Easley
Seoul
The writer is a professor of international politics at Ewha University and a research fellow at the Asan Institute.
