SUSPENDED TALKS ON CYBERSECURITY, FREQUENT exchanges of allegations over approaches to disputes and regional security...the recent divergences between Beijing and Washington run so deep and broad that mutual suspicions about purposes and intentions dominate any discussion about their uneasy relationship. Hence, the atmosphere seems less than conducive for the sixth China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

The new type of major-country relationship, once a favored catchphrase of well-wishers, is no longer what it was immediately after the meeting between the Chinese and US presidents last summer.

Washington's intention of containing China is obvious; and throughout the world, Americans are spreading the notion that an increasingly assertive China endangers the Asia-Pacific. Which boils down to distrust of each other and doubts that a rising power can truly co-exist with an incumbent power.