US-China relations were perceived as "rocky" when President George W. Bush entered the White House in January 2001, partly because the team of advisors who served him were known as powerful and intellectual combatants who viewed China as an adversary to the US in the 21st century. The collision in the South China Sea in April 2001, between a US reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter jet marked a shaky start for Bush. Then the events of September 11, 2001 happened, which actually drew China's President Jiang Zemin closer to Bush, who sought cooperation from all governments to fight global terrorism.

The authors in this book say that the turning point in US-China relations was the visit by Jiang to Bush's home ranch in Crawford, Texas. Jiang apparently became only the fourth government leader invited by Bush to his ranch, a mark of distinction as Bush carefully selected his visitors. Jiang's visit was even more significant as Bush told the world after September 11 that "if you are not with us, you are against us" in the case of global terrorism. Jiang's visit seemed to indicate that China was on the US side. Bush visited China in February 2002 and later that year Jiang visited him in the US. Strobe Talbott, a former US undersecretary of state during the Clinton administration believed that the Crawford meeting contributed to the improvement of US-China ties after the disastrous beginning of the Bush presidency, marked by the plane collision.

For those who think China's authoritarian regime and the Communist party may not survive its institutional reform, Andrew J. Nathan, a well known China scholar, says that the regime is more resilient than one would expect. Nathan says that the transition of power from the third to the fourth generation, from Jiang to Hu Jintao, has been the most orderly and peaceful in China's modern history.

Nathan says that the resiliency in Chinese leadership can be traced to the time of Deng Xiaoping and the time when Jiang was elected to the presidency in 1992 and then again in 1997. Jiang promised to step down in 2002 with respect to the rule of retirement for older Chinese political leaders. Deng did not try to stop Jiang from being reelected and Jiang did not try to select his successor, leaving the task to the 16th Party Congress in November 2002 to select Hu Jintao. Nathan wonders whether China's transition to an economic power in the past two decades can be called an "authoritarian transition." He says China has survived changes by empowering the technocratic elite, introducing bureaucratic regulations and abandoning its utopian ideology and charismatic style of leadership.

"Under conditions that elsewhere have led to democratic transition, China has made a transition instead from totalitarianism to a classic authoritarian regime, and one that appears increasingly stable," Nathan says.

But he says that the transition in China is disturbing because Beijing authorities have demonstrated that authoritianism can survive under conditions of advanced modernization and integration into the global economy.

J. Stapleton Roy pursues the idea of US-China cooperation, saying that good relations between the two countries can have a direct impact on the fight against terrorism. But Roy says that while America fights terrorism, it should not ignore China's emerging economic power, which will have a great impact on the future of peace and security in East Asia and the world. Roy says the future of US-China relations in the 21st century is still "uncertain." He quotes a saying by Zhou En-lai, who was asked many years ago for his reaction about the future of Chinese ties with the US.

"It's too soon to tell," Zhou said.