1 With the special meeting between the first dollar of China and the United States in Annaberg Manor, California, the term "new-type relations between major powers" frequently appeared in relevant media reports. As the world's second largest economy, the largest developing country and the largest developed country, whether China and the United States can explore a new way to build a new type of relationship between major powers is related to the peace and development of the whole world, involving the future development direction of international relations and the international system, which is of epoch-making significance.

2. There are two kinds of relations between great powers: one is the relationship between ordinary powers or between ordinary powers and hegemonic countries, such as Sino-Russian relations, Sino-Indian relations and US-Russian relations; The other is the relationship between a rising power and a hegemonic power, which refers to Sino-US relations. Correspondingly, there are two new types of relations between major powers, and their connotations, foundations and construction strategies are different.

3. According to the connotation of "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation", the new-type relationship between China and the United States does not refer to the relationship between ordinary powers, but specifically refers to the relationship between rising powers and hegemonic powers. If it refers to ordinary big power relations, then the above three connotations are of little significance, because some big power relations (such as Sino-Russian relations) already exist. In March 20 13, the joint statement signed by the two countries during the president's visit to Russia stated that "based on the historical experience and practice of establishing a new type of relationship between major powers", the two sides called for "establishing a new type of relationship between major powers with long-term, stable and healthy development". This shows that, in the eyes of the leaders of China and Russia, the two countries have already had "historical experience and practice" in establishing a new type of relationship between major powers, and they are calling on other major powers to actively contribute to building a new type of relationship between major powers.

4. Of course, the relationship between the two new powers is * * *. In any case, "no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation" should be the basic requirements. Although the alliance that still exists meets the requirements of "no conflict, no confrontation and win-win cooperation", it lacks "mutual respect". In addition, the alliance is a product of the old times and a form of old-fashioned big country relations. It often means that the allies have the same opposite, which is easy to breed "confrontational thinking", which goes against the trend of the times and is not conducive to the healthy development of relations among countries outside the alliance.

5. The proposal of building a new type of great power relationship between China and the United States means that the current Sino-US relationship is not really a "new type of great power relationship", although there are some elements of the "new type of great power relationship", such as the close cooperation between the two countries, there has been no comprehensive confrontation since the establishment of diplomatic relations. It is an idea to build a new type of relationship between China and the United States. The purpose of putting forward this idea is to solve the problem of "great power political tragedy" or "Thucydides Trap". It seems to be an iron law in international relations that a rising power and a hegemonic power must confront each other. As the only exception, Anglo-American relations also benefit from many favorable objective conditions. At that time, the strategic competition between Britain and the United States was fierce and there was a risk of confrontation. Without the rise of Germany, it is hard to say that Britain and the United States will not move toward conflict. For China, it is of special strategic significance to build a new-type relationship between China and the United States. From the historical experience and lessons, in the strategic game between a rising power and a hegemonic power, the hegemonic power often controls more strategic resources and has obvious strategic advantages. If the "great power political tragedy" really happens, the damage suffered by hegemonic forces in the lose-lose outcome will be more or less fatal. China must avoid and leap over the "Thucydides Trap" if it wants to take the road of peaceful development smoothly and achieve peaceful rise. This is undoubtedly the best way to ensure the healthy development of Sino-US relations and avoid the "political tragedy of great powers". Of course, it is good for the United States and luckier for the world that China and the United States do not repeat the "political tragedy of great powers." If successful, it will create the history of relations between major powers.

6. As a new concept, it is not only a good wish to build a new type of relationship between China and the United States, but also has a solid realistic foundation. This realistic foundation is the existing Sino-US relations. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, although bilateral relations have experienced ups and downs, they have been developing continuously on the whole. The two countries not only did not have all-round conflicts and confrontations, but also deepened cooperation and won in many fields. The existing Sino-US relations can be regarded as "quasi-new-type big power relations". This "quasi-new-type big power relationship" has laid a good foundation for the construction of a new-type big power relationship, which evolved on the basis of the former, rather than being born.

7. There are two backgrounds for the formation and development of "quasi-new-type relations between major powers": First, in the era of globalization with peace and development as the theme, the common interests among major powers have increased significantly, especially in maintaining world peace and promoting their own development through interdependence, and the common interests among major powers have far surpassed the contradictions in ideology and geostrategy; Second, under the influence of globalization, multipolarization and multipolarization, international contradictions have become more and more complicated, weakening the inherent contradictions among major powers. Under the influence of the above two backgrounds and influencing factors, the relations between major powers have undergone profound changes after the Cold War, which are highlighted in the following two aspects.

(1) First, cooperation is the basic form of competition. On the one hand, the differences of interests between traditional nation-states have not been eliminated, and there is still a competitive relationship between big countries. On the other hand, there are more and more common interests among big countries. After "9. 1 1", two arenas were formed: first, all big countries are threatened by global issues such as terrorism; Second, the competition among big countries for strategic, economic and political interests is still fierce, but it is accompanied by extensive and in-depth cooperation.

(2) Second, the contest of comprehensive national strength is the main way for big countries to compete. Under the influence of the lessons of the two world wars and the cold war, nuclear weapons and globalization, the competition among great powers no longer relies mainly on military means, nor does it rely on force to attack cities and plunder land. The main way of competition has been transformed into comprehensive strength competition with economy and technology as the core, and the role of military strength is relatively limited. What is the development prospect of "quasi-new-type big power relations"? Is it a return to the old-fashioned relationship between big powers or a new relationship between big powers? The answer should be the latter. The reason for this is objective reality. The above-mentioned factors that promote the formation of "quasi-new-type big power relations" are also promoting the construction of new-type big power relations.

(3) But "quasi-new relationship" is still possible to reverse the old relationship, so it is qualitatively different from the real new relationship. As far as Sino-US relations are concerned, since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, competition and cooperation between the two countries have been intertwined. With the bilateral relationship becoming more and more the nature of a rising power and a hegemonic power, the competing side is obviously rising. If competition is obviously greater than cooperation, then bilateral relations may move towards confrontation.

(4) The reason why the "new relationship" is "new" is to break through the traditional competition-oriented relationship between emerging powers and hegemonic countries and turn to cooperation. To ensure cooperation, both sides should be clear about "no conflict and no confrontation" from the concept and strategy. At the same time, in order to ensure win-win cooperation, non-confrontation and non-conflict, both sides should strive to achieve mutual respect. Among the three connotations of "new-type relationship between major powers", win-win cooperation is the core, while others are the premise and guarantee conditions.

(5) In particular, it should be pointed out that in the past, China's comprehensive strength was relatively weak, and it was only an ordinary member of "how strong" in the international political structure. Sino-US relations do not have the nature of the relationship between a rising power and a hegemonic power, so the reality of slipping into a "great power political tragedy" is not prominent. Building a "new-type relationship between major powers" is to make a qualitative leap in Sino-US relations on the basis of "quasi-new-type relationship between major powers", focusing on the relationship between rising powers and hegemonic powers.

Summarizing the "quasi-new-type big power relations" between China and the United States, we can see that the two countries have not moved towards all-round confrontation and conflict for decades, but have also won through cooperation. However, the friction between the two countries continues, confrontations and conflicts in individual fields often occur, and strategic mutual trust is also seriously lacking, which makes people always worry that "quasi-new-type big power relations" will slide to old-style big power relations. The main reason is that the United States does not treat China equally and does not give due respect to China's core interests and great power status. Therefore, to build a new type of relationship between China and the United States, the two countries must strengthen mutual respect. The United States, in particular, should adjust its hegemonic mentality and power mentality and regard China as an "equal partner", as President Obama said. Of course, for China, there are also questions about how to treat the "interest concern" and hegemonic mentality of the United States. As the world's largest power, it is also a hegemonic country recognized and pursued by quite a few countries. Its "interest concerns" are absolutely different from those of ordinary big countries. Of course, it is difficult for it to give up its hegemonic mentality and truly treat other countries equally. But this is an important practical problem that China must face rationally and cannot avoid. In a sense, this is precisely the difficulty in building a new type of relationship between China and the United States.