U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, asked about his foreign policy priorities when named Person of the Year by Time magazine, listed nuclear proliferation, climate change and global poverty as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, the trans-Atlantic alliance, Russia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and then, almost as an afterthought, "managing our relationship with China and the entire Pacific Rim."
In a way, this is good since it reflects the relatively calm state of that relationship, with no crisis that needs immediate presidential attention.
But the next president must recognize that China is not just a relationship to be managed. It is perhaps the key relationship that the United States must sustain if Obama is to achieve success in virtually all his other foreign policy priority areas.