The United States and China are again seeking to resolve their long-running dispute on trade this week as a high-level delegation from Washington arrives in Beijing for another round of negotiations. In recent days, however, peaceful engagement with the Middle Kingdom hasn’t been on Washington’s mind. The U.S. dispatched warships through the strait between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, earning the inevitable rebuke from Beijing, which still claims the island as part of China. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, warned one of America’s closest allies, Israel, about getting too close to China, pointing to risks over technological cooperation with Beijing. These divergent events typify what has become a highly dysfunctional relationship between Washington and Beijing. At one moment, the two are striving to overcome their differences on trade, which if successful would likely lead to even greater integration between their economies. The next, they are sparring over a lengthening list of issues, from territorial rights to cutting-edge technology and infrastructure projects. Neither government seems to have a coherent strategy for dealing with the other. Do the U.S. and China want to be friends? Enemies? Frenemies? What exactly do they envision their future relationship to be? [] “That is the question,” John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush and now a professor at the University of Virginia, told me. In Washington, he continued, “is anyone really thinking about the long-term relationship? To the extent they are, they are thinking about it in a negative, adversarial direction.” As China quickly becomes a superpower, how its relations with the U.S. unfold will shape global affairs. If they descend into confrontation, the world could again split into two blocs competing for dominance, as happened during the Cold War. More cooperative ties, conversely, would bolster global economic prospects, as well as hopes that pressing international problems, such as climate change and nuclear proliferation, could be addressed. “Do we want to preserve one world, one system? The relationship with China is critical to that,” Negroponte added. “Clearly, if there is one world, two systems, it’s going to be much harder to deal with global issues.” Only a couple of years ago, few even imagined we’d be asking these questions. Cooperation with China was a core principle of American foreign policy. Ever since Richard Nixon’s 1972 summit with Mao Zedong in Beijing, Washington’s goal has been to entice China into the U.S.-led global order through bonds of trade and investment. But recently, many think-tankers and policy makers in the U.S.—most prominently, President Donald Trump—have characterized that strategy as a colossal mistake. In their view, an overly generous U.S. transformed China into its chief rival for world economic and strategic supremacy. Worse still, Beijing has, its detractors insist, cheated its way to superpower stature by pilfering American technology and factories. And when you also consider China’s steady military buildup and assertive foreign policy, the country has appeared in Washington’s eyes to be more and more a threat, rather than a partner. What changed? Mostly policy in China. President Xi Jinping, who took power in 2012, introduced a series of aggressive initiatives aimed at expanding China’s political and economic clout on a global scale. He launched the Belt and Road Initiative to construct infrastructure around the world, financed by Chinese banks and built by Chinese companies. A new industrial program known as “Made in China 2025” marshaled heavy state aid to accelerate the development of homegrown technology and national corporate champions in sectors from electric cars to robotics. Domestically, Xi has been busy devi