The recent agreement between China and the United States on their much-anticipated phase one deal has eased the mounting tensions between the two countries. But patience and greater efforts are needed to stabilize and cultivate healthy relations.

First, that the two sides have reached a deal that prevents further tariff penalties and also made some progress in respect of broader issues shows their shared intent to stop relations from foundering.

The US president, making a concrete achievement in his foreign policy, coupled with the boost it would give the US economy, would help strengthen his reelection chances. Especially, China agreeing to buy larger amounts of agricultural products will surely strengthen his election base in the rural area, which has suffered a lot as a result of the trade war his administration launched against China.

For China, given the pressure from slowed economic growth due to domestic economic restructuring and the external headwinds, preventing the US from levying more tariffs so as revitalize exports, and at least prevent the situation from further deteriorating is certainly imperative.

Both sides therefore need a trade truce to avoid a downward spiral in their relationship and to avoid any decoupling.

However, the US and China have different interpretations of the content of the deal, and these differences harbor risks in the implementation, so even if signed the deal will remain fragile.

The US leader faces a lot of domestic criticism for supposedly "giving too much" to China, for not touching upon such structural items as China's industrial policy and the role of its State-owned enterprises. And although some consensus has been reached on protection of intellectual property and currency rates, whether China can really carry it out－to the extent the US expects－is "doubtful". Given the criticism, the US administration's room for maneuver in the upcoming phase-two period is limited.

The US has threatened to snapback to the punitive tariffs anytime when China "disobeys the agreement". But, as pointed out by the Chinese media, the largest annual purchase of US agricultural products by China is only $27 billion, and whether the US can provide enough commodities for China to buy so it can meet the demand of $200 billion in two years is doubtful.

Furthermore, the Sino-US trade tensions are only part of the contentious bilateral relation in general. The US has undergone a paradigm shift in its China policy, and big power rivalry has taken the place of anti-terrorism as the strategic focus of the US. Mainstream US thinkers have reflected profoundly on the country's China policy, which has been based on the two-pronged approach of both cooperation and competition, and as early as the later years of the Barack Obama administration, some people began to doubt the value of this approach, and the voices claiming "engagement was a failure" began to be heard. It seems to many in the US that four decades of engagement have not made China an integral part of the US-led world order, rather there is the danger of it being vice versa. As a result, China now is deemed as a "revisionist" power aiming to challenge the predominant status of the US in an all-around way.

Thus, the US no longer embraces cooperation and engagement as indispensable parts of its China policy, and it is focused on competition. More than 100 mechanisms that had been set up between the two countries have now either been halted or canceled－the one only remaining is the trade dialogue. The diplomatic and security dialogue finished the last round in November 2018 and has not been resumed. On the other hand, we see the US implementing its "Indo-Pacific" strategy, and interfering in Taiwan, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and intentionally connecting issues relating to these areas with the trade talks.

Although the US now and again says it seeks to establish a "constructive and result-oriented relationship" and denies it wants a "cold war" or "decoupling", its engagement and cooperation with China is never for the good of their relations, but rather for the US' own interest. Thus its engagement is characterized by coerciveness.

Yet, China's rise means its capability to shape the dynamics of the relationship is increasing. The future is very much dependent on how effectively each side can shape the trajectory of their relations. Although only limited progress has been make in trade deal up till now, it lays bare the inherent glue that binds the two countries together. China's rise may shake the US primacy, yet to avoid the worse, both sides should learn to compete fairly and cultivate consensus.

The author is research professor and chief of US Foreign Policy, Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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