To address the issue of bilateral trade tensions, China and the United States need to cooperate. The United States must be more patient, but the burden falls on China-Beijing needs to accelerate its domestic reforms so that China can have a more flexible currency regime and rely on domestic demand, not exports, to generate growth.

For the long term, there is not much that can be done. Such differences are going to be there as long as our eyes can see. So we need to learn to live with the structural tensions in Sino-U.S. relations.

Jerome A. Cohen: The thorniest issues that confront our relationship at present remain those relating to Taiwan and to differing views and practices regarding political and civil rights. The Shanghai Communique demonstrated that bold, enlightened and imaginative leadership on both sides can do much to help us manage even problems of the greatest sensitivity.

On what issues mentioned in the communique has there been progress?

Jeffrey A. Bader: The communique called for progress toward normalization of relations between the United States and China. Since then, our relations have been fully normalized and have expanded extraordinarily.

It discussed military crises in Indochina, Korea, India-Pakistan, and implicitly referred to the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in Asia. The Cold War has ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Korea still remains a threat to international peace and stability, though the situation has changed with the normalization of relations between China and the Republic of Korea and contacts between the north and the south. The India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir has not been settled, but tensions between the two sides have abated in recent years. The Viet Nam War ended long ago with the expulsion of U.S. forces from the region. The United States and Viet Nam have since normalized relations.

Finally the communique mentions in passing the desirability of expanding trade and people-to-people contacts. They have expanded by many orders of magnitude, I would say, well beyond anything imagined at the time by the drafters of the communique.

Jerome A. Cohen: Of course, there has been considerable progress on the Taiwan issue in recent decades as both mainland-Taiwan economic cooperation and cultural and tourist exchanges have begun to flourish. If ways can be found to prevent a cross-strait arms race, to open up the long-awaited "three links" [direct postal, transportation and trade links between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan] for enhanced contacts between the two sides and to establish a continuing dialogue, prospects for managing this most difficult challenge will brighten.

The People's Republic has also done much to establish a legal system and to increase popular awareness of political and civil rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

Where do you see the U.S.-China trade relationship is going in the coming years?

Jeffrey A. Bader: The trade relationship between the two sides has grown spectacularly, with two-way trade expanding by several hundred percent in the last decade. Each side will play an increasingly important part in both the international trade interests and the economic growth of the other in the coming years.

In addition, investment, not only by Americans in China but by Chinese in America, will grow and stimulate trade and economic expansion. I expect China's markets to continue to open further even as China completes the fulfillment of its WTO commitments.

I do not foresee American markets closing, though trade frictions are increasing from the American side as China's exports to the United States continue to grow at rates over 25 percent annually and the Chinese bilateral trade surplus expands to record levels.