“…Within the literature, relations are typically broken down into three distinct periods, namely, the Cold War period, the post‐Cold War period, and the post‐September 2001 period. Scholars typically describe the evolution and nature of the relationship from the period of normalization in 1979 to the present and, from that, hypothesize whether future relations are more likely to be confrontational, competitive, or cooperative (Scalapino, ; Glasner, ; Zhao ; Friedberg, ; Peng, ; Zagoria, ; Freeman & Chas, ; Irvine, ). Neglected in these studies, except for the work of Friedberg (), are discussions that theorize about the nature of the Sino‐American relationship along the cooperative‐confrontational continuum.…”