China and the United States faced several major sources of tension in their relations in 2013, overshadowing their efforts to build what they called a "new model" of ties between two major powers.
The Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington-based research institute, examined those tensions this month as part of a panel discussion reviewing key developments in the U.S.-China relationship over the past year.
One prominent development was the inauguration of Chinese President Xi Jinping in March.
President Barack Obama hosted Mr. Xi at California’s for an informal summit in June. It was their first meeting as the leaders of their countries.
Wilson Center panelist Isaac Stone Fish, associate editor of magazine, said the meeting changed U.S. perceptions of China’s new leader.
"This is the first time we have had a Chinese leader who appears to believe that the United States and China should interact on an equal footing. We saw that with Sunnylands," Fish said.
"That is really going to change the tenor of U.S.-China relations in everything from human rights to trade and international politics."
Another panelist, history professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom of the University of California, said U.S. officials also learned that President Xi has much in common with his predecessors.
"Whenever there are new Chinese leaders who talk about economic and social reform, the United States hopes those leaders also want political reform," said Wasserstrom.
"But we were disappointed with Hu Jintao, and now we have been disappointed with Xi Jinping. It turns out he is an authoritarian, nationalist, modernizer who wants to tinker with the Chinese economy and social structure, much like Deng Xiaoping. Xi is not China's [version of Soviet reformer] Mikhail Gorbachev," he continued.
China’s growing assertiveness in territorial disputes with its neighbors was another significant source of tension with the United States, which has military alliances with many of those neighbors.
Beijing declared the establishment of a large Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, off its eastern coast in November. It said all foreign aircraft passing through the zone had to share information with Chinese authorities or face consequences. The zone covers the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, controlled by Japan but claimed by China, and a South Korean research facility built on a submerged rock.
The United States and its allies Japan and South Korea quickly rejected China’s move and sent military aircraft through the area without informing Beijing. The Chinese government took no apparent enforcement action, leading some U.S. observers to describe the zone as a Chinese "own goal."
Panel moderator Robert Daly, who heads the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, said the zone was not as damaging for Beijing as some think.
"From Beijing’s point of view, they are putting down markers and saying they will not [retract] their vague claims that this is a Chinese zone," said Daly.
"They have done this in part to be consistent about the Diaoyus/Senkakus. They probably feel that this is a win for them, and we should not gloat about own goals. I would not be surprised to see more Chinese zones, with perhaps a better rollout, in the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea in 2014," said Daly.
Another aggravation to U.S.-China ties was cybercrime, with both nations complaining that their government and corporate institutions were victims of hacking attacks originating from the other side.
That dispute escalated when former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sought shelter in the Chinese territory of Hong Kong as he leaked details of U.S. cyber spying programs that, he claimed, targeted Chinese institutions, among others. China allowed Snowden to fly to Russia in June rather than accept a U.S. demand for his extradition. Washington expressed deep disappointment.
More tension emerged as Beijing cracked down on Internet activists who called for the upholding of human rights as promised in the 1982 Chinese constitution.
U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch reported that Chinese authorities detained at least 50 activists of the New Citizens’ Movement during the year.
Wilson Center panelist David Wertime, founder of online China magazine , said the crackdown scared many bloggers into self-censoring their advocacy for constitutional rights.
"Chinese authorities are very keen to tie some of these liberal ideas to the West," Wertime said.