According to Reuters report, meeting with Senate Democrats on 3rd Feburary, US President Barack Obama said that Washington needed “to get much tougher about enforcement of existing rules, putting constant pressure on China and other countries to open up their markets in reciprocal ways”. With increasing pressure from Democrats, on 12 March, Obama announced latest statement to push China to raise its currency exchange rate and rebalance the global market.

Beijing is angry about Obama’s statement and reacted strongly. As China Daily’s report, Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that the value of yuan is balanced in the financial market. To adjust exchange rate is China’s own business, and the yuan should not be a political issue forced by the United States.

The complaints that China’s currency policies making the US companies face a disadvantage price competition have lasted for years. There are two main reasons that why Obama vows to get tough on China’s trade and currency.

In the first place, China is a good explanation for the slow economic recovery of the US. In last year, compare with 8.7 per cent GDP growth rate(National Bureau of Statistics) in China’s economy,  Americans were unsatisfied with the US economy and the high unemployment rate which nearly reached 10 per cent (Labor Department data from Washington). The US has blamed that its economic problems were caused by China’s monetary policy and trade strategy. Obama claimed that millions of new jobs would be created in the US with one per cent point increase in trading to Asia. Therefore, Obama was urged to open foreign market and boost US exports. He also faces the task to reduce the huge trade imbalance, which is recorded by USTR Office as more than $330 billion, between the US and China in 2009.

Secondly, in order to shift domestic pressures, holding a tough attitude to China is a method for Obama to improve his supporting rates. Obama promised to bring changes to America during his election campaign; however, his “smart diplomacy” failed. The mid-term elections for US Congress are coming, and one of the main concerns of voters is the economy. It would be a political success if Obama can take actions to China’s currency and provide greater access to some Chinese markets for US companies.

President Obama made efforts to improve the US-China relations in his first year, including his visit to China. However, since 2010, with the recent strong arguments about trade and currency, there are bursting tensions in the US and China relations. Actually, apart from the economic reasons, the relationship between the US and China has always been difficult due to various factors.
Because of different histories, the shared political values of Americans and Chinese are distinct. Americans were consisted of immigrants, a great part of whom are from Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The common goal of these people was to seek for a better life with good economic environment. Influenced by this history ethnic politics and national interest are two central concepts of the US foreign policy.

By contrast, the priority of individual liberty does not exist in Asian values. To compare the modern history, America’s was relatively peaceful except the Civil War, while China’s was much more complicated. Chinese people suffered at least five severely destructive periods just in the twentieth century. Millions of people lost their lives because of self-infliction. Consequently, order and economic advancement are two important values for Chinese.

On 18 February, despite Chinese government’s warnings and objections, President Obama met with the Dalai Lama. Obama stressed his "strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans", according to a White House statement reported by the CNN.

In addition, from the military aspect, the US thinks it is necessary to support sufficient weapons to Taiwan, to keep the commitment of the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status. Chinese government claims that this will only cause further tensions between mainland and Taiwan Strait.  In 2001, former President George W. Bush carried out $11 billion weapons to Taiwan. This year, President Obama continues a sale of $6.4 billion US arms to Taiwan that makes China upset. To against the weapons deal with Taiwan, Beijing cancels military contacts with the US, reported by the Washington Post. Beijing aims to warn the US firms involved in the arms deal with Taiwan by punitive sanctions.

The environmental conflict is another aspect that affects the US and China relations. According to Telegraph’s news, at the Copenhagen climate summit, the two largest emitter of carbon dioxide, clashed on the main argument of how to cut greenhouse gases. Regardless of Obama’s insistency on monitoring China’s cutting of greenhouse gas, Chinese Premier Wen JiaBao did not accept this approach. It seemed like from then on, Obama has started to turn a tough attitude to the emerging Pacific power countries.

The dramatic economic development of China is shifting the global economic centre from west to east. The previous world order is being changed, and the sole superpower of the US is diminished. One example is that Obama changes the description of the US to “one of the most important countries” in his speeches. Nevertheless, acting the role as the world police and taking part in all global issues, superiority and dominance are typical cultural characteristics of the US. The US seems to have the duty to bring democracy and freedom to other countries. On the one side, considered as a challenger, the raising power of China in the world could not be accepted by the US easily. The attitudes of Americans and Chinese towards each other are still influenced by their post-cold war thinking. No matter how the economy develops in China, China has always been claiming itself as a communist country. As a capitalist countries and experienced the conflicts with USSR in last century, it is hard for America to be not hostile to a communist country.  Besides the image of constructive, threatening is another view of China by American. Compared with 18 per cent of Americans regarding China as a “serious threat” in 1980, this figure jumped to 60 per cent twenty years later. On the other side, the glorious history and humiliated invasion by foreigners leads China has a strong desire to pursue greatness and regain equality internationally.

Furthermore, misunderstandings between these two countries are also caused by stereotyped or unbalanced report of China in the US. News related with China is lack of depth and comprehensive. As most media platform is event-driven, it is impossible for audience to know the complex gradual transformation of China in few seconds’ news report. 

With a serious of disagreements related with trade, Taiwan, and Tibet, 2010 is a difficult year for the US and China. Some argue that the prospect of their future relationship is not good, however, it is natural for two countries with such differences to experience “ups and downs”. Not only represents as a threat, China is also an opportunity to the US. As People’s Daily reported, President Obama told China’s new ambassador Zhang Yesui on 28, March that “Today, our relationship has the ability to shape the 21st century, making it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world.”

Sharing certain common interests, it will be a win-win situation for both the US and China to develop a mature and healthy relationship. In terms of the global security, the BBC reported that on 1 April, President Obama made a phone call to Chinese President Hu Jintao for cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue. They also talked about Taiwan and how to encourage economic recovery based on the G20 agreements. This discussion reflects a signal to ease the recent tensions between these two powerful countries. In addition, China has played an important role to bring North Korea back to six-talks and solve its nuclear programmes. On the economic side, both need to make efforts to adjust the current imbalanced trade. They have to get on with work to face climate change, reduce carbon emissions and develop cleaner energy as well.

Overall, the crucial relationship between US and China is anticipating all over the world. They are two different nations in their values, histories and cultures, which lead to distinctive outcomes inside and outside the boundaries. However, the US needs China as a full economic and political partner. China will have more obligations on global responsibilities, and would possible need to sustain the US interests in the further development of Asia.  Although the US and China relation appears some flaws recently, the tendency of stable development is not easy to be changed.