Is China friend or rival?

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to the U.S. was “a great success,” said Shen Dingli in Beijing’s China Daily. “Treating each other amicably and communicating with each other candidly and straightforwardly,” Hu and President Obama “reached a fuller understanding of each other’s opinions.” Major economic deals worth more than $40 billion were concluded. The “historic” four-day visit, which included a full banquet and a 21-gun salute, demonstrated the “mutual respect” between the two nations.

The Chinese public saw the grand reception accorded to Hu “as a symbol of a burgeoning Chinese national dignity,” said Li Hongmei in Beijing’s People’s Daily. Relations between China and the U.S. are just thawing after a “yearlong chill.” There were plenty of reasons for the prickliness. Obama’s February meeting with the Dalai Lama was needlessly provocative. And the U.S. sale of $6 billion worth of arms to Taiwan last year didn’t help matters. Add to that the ongoing “currency squabbles” and “America’s move to reclaim influence in the Asia-Pacific region” by sending an aircraft carrier there in November, and you had the makings of an “intense face-off.”

Indeed, China-U.S. relations “stand at a very critical moment,” said Wu Jianmin, also in the People’s Daily. China’s economy is skyrocketing. Foreign trade soared last year to $3 trillion, “a sixfold increase in 10 years, which is unprecedented in the history of human development.” At the same time, though, the global financial crisis has “battered the U.S. economy.” On a tour of the U.S. last November, I “personally witnessed” a sense of gloom and malaise among people from all social classes. Americans, usually so confident, now have “very mixed feelings when they contact the outside world, and particularly when they contact or deal with the upbeat and enthusiastic Chinese people.”

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Each country’s people do “maintain a certain distrust toward each other,” said Beijing’s Global Times in an editorial. Obama said the U.S. welcomes China’s rise, but that message “has not been widely accepted in the U.S.” Fortunately, the leaders “have correctly advanced bilateral ties in uncertain times, thus laying a foundation for lasting world peace.” With their massive mutual trade and many common interests, China and the U.S. need each other. Together, they can leave behind the traditional zero-sum competition between major powers and instead forge a “new political civilization” based on cooperation.

Let’s hope so, said Jingdong Yuan in Hong Kong’s Asia Times. Plenty of stumbling blocks lie ahead. The relationship between the two countries’ militaries—the world’s largest—“requires great care.” The two great powers “could find themselves in serious confrontations” over a range of issues, including North Korea, climate change, Taiwan, human rights, and, of course, trade and currency disputes. Hu’s visit was a good start toward resetting relations. But “much hard work remains.”