When the Asia Society's ChinaFile online magazine invited me to discuss whether a declining United States is good for China, my feeling was the question was loaded and confusing. Loaded because it seems to assume that Chinese will celebrate a declining US, given the sensational headlines of strategic rivalry between the two nations we see so often in the news media.

Yes. There are Chinese who might jubilate over a declining US, just as there are those in the US who are eager to see China go bust. But that is by no means the majority in both nations.

But first we should clarify whether the question refers to an absolute decline or a relative decline. These are starkly different questions and will get different answers.