Disputes that have bedeviled relations between the United States and China for decades flared up again following President Obama's decision to sell weapons to Taiwan and receive Tibet's revered Dalai Lama. From the U.S. perspective, China's refusal to raise the value of its currency is undermining America's -- and Europe's -- economic recovery. Beijing also rebuffed Obama's proposal of "a partnership on the big global issues of our time." In addition, the Chinese insist on tackling their pollution problems in their own way, and have been reluctant to support U.S. diplomatic efforts to impose tough sanctions on nuclear-minded Iran. With the central bank of China holding more than $800 billion of the U.S. national debt in the form of Treasury notes, and their economy speeding along at a 9 percent growth rate, the Chinese are in no mood to be accommodating.

Roland Flamini is a Washington-based correspondent who writes a foreign-affairs column for CQ Weekly. Fluent in six languages, he served as Time magazine's bureau chief in Rome, Bonn, Beirut, Jerusalem and the European Common Market and later served as international editor at United Press International.