The history of relations between the United States and China tells a story of mistrust, exploitation, naivety, and conflicting points of view, but also a struggle to overcome these differences. In recent decades, the two nations have become increasingly dependent on each other, but America still cannot overcome many of the divisions established between the United States and Maoist China, argues Michael Schaller. Although relations have turned hostile in the period since the end of World War II, China's diplomatic outlook towards the United States and the West has always been rather reserved. China's attitude towards America has never dissuaded it (America) from pursuing its interests in the Far East. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, America sought to open the Chinese market to expand trade and increase the amount of missionary work in China. From the collapse of the Qing until the end of the “loss of China” in 1949, the United States sought to ensure that China's market and potential military power remained favorable to the United States in the postwar period. After Mao's Chinese Communist Party conquered the mainland, the United States began to point fingers at the loss of Chang Kai-shek's pro-American state. Tensions finally cooled in the 1970s with Nixon's overture to China, ushering in a détente between the powers. In this new phase of relations, America and China sought to advance mutual interests toward containment of the Soviet bloc. America began its history with China “from their first contact in 1780” during the twilight years of the Chinese imperial era (4). The aristocracy of China's last dynasty, the Qing, clung desperately to preserving not only China's sovereignty but also their relevance as a power structure to the region as Western powers... ew] The Bush administration... began to describe China as a 'strategic competitor' or rival" (3). Throughout Sino-American history, relations have been boring, but there are moments of cooperation between the two powers. A lack of understanding for cultural and political differences have repeatedly brought these nations into conflict. The American view of China has often been naïve. Americans imagined China as they wanted it to be and not as it actually was America's control of the region have caused drastically different reactions throughout China's history with the United States. Cooperation for mutual benefit has repeatedly overshadowed the differences in Sino-American relations, and the current partnership between the two. two nations continues to be one of the most important in modern geopolitics. history,