Meanwhile, the Western-led global community has lost much of its ability to credibly deter bad behavior. Worst of all, the rogue state's victims -- slaughtered ethnic minorities, oppressed democratic activists -- are less likely to find reprieve. So far, China has undercut global cooperation against the regimes in North Korea, Iran, Burma, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. If international sanctions hit Côte d'Ivoire, it seems likely that China will be happy to undercut those sanctions by buying up the country's oil when prices rise this summer.

The U.S. isn't to blame for China's opportunism, of course, but we may be in a position to manage it. China has reached out to rogue states partly because it has been so stymied in East Asia, where a U.S.-led coalition of regional states, stretching from South Korea and Japan to Thailand and Indonesia, have isolated China in its own backyard. This has effectively reduced China's influence in the region, especially in the resource-rich South China Sea and its islands, but has also trained China to think of U.S.-led coalitions, whether in East Asia or in the United Nations, as antagonists. Recent polls indicate that Chinese respondents are increasingly wary of U.S. influence in East Asia, which they see as a threat. This has also accelerated the rise within Chinese politics of the People's Liberation Army -- a body far less likely to favor global cooperation or to consider Western pleas against, say, investing $40 billion in Iran.

As with so many foreign policy problems, the U.S. faces a dilemma between two uncertain and risky paths. On our current path, the U.S. minimizes China's rising global influence but, in exchange, accepts that China will continue undercutting global efforts against all but the most dangerous rogue states. In his meetings with Hu this week, however, Obama could consider a different path. By easing its containment policies, the U.S. might purchase better behavior. For example, Chinese poll respondents ranked the "Taiwan question" as the second most important issue Hu should address during his visit in Washington. It's probably a far lower priority for the U.S., which is reportedly considering a $4 billion upgrade to Taiwan's air force. Scaling back such deals, which are clear signals to China, could buy Hu's short-term cooperation on an issue important to the U.S., such isolating Côte d'Ivoire. In the long-term, it might promote greater trust between the powers, instead of reinforcing those in China who see the U.S. as a threat. This strategy would carry real dangers -- weakening staunch U.S. allies such as Taiwan, for example -- and no promise of paying out. But the current strategy is anything but safe. Whichever path the U.S. and China take, the rest of the world will be dragged along with them.

Image: Presidents Obama and Hu meet at the Nuclear Security Summit in April. By Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty.



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