A Shifting Balance: Chinese Assessments Of U.S. Power | Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In a concise summary of the single most important international relationship in the world today, Bonnie Glaser deconstructs how China sees the U.S. and its changing role in global security.

What leaps out of Glaser’s summary is that even as China defines itself in terms of the U.S., for all of the U.S. military’s transparency, China is still split in how it sees U.S. intentions in the wake of the global financial crisis. We can ascribe that to one of two things: a lack of sophistication about the U.S. among America-watchers in China (which I don’t deem likely,) or, more likely, that it is in the political interest of different parties inside of China to interpret U.S. moves in different ways.

Glaser, for her part, tracks these internal differences and offers ides for how the U.S. should respond. Excellent analysis.