On the other hand, win-win has become a deep-rooted mindset among Chinese leaders and people ever since the country started its reform and opening-up drive. Yet in the wake of a rising China, India, Brazil and others, the US has increasingly shown a zero-sum mentality. The fact that the US is the only country that has not endorsed the International Monetary Fund voting right reform speaks volume to that.

Instead, some US officials and politicians have tried hard in the past years to defame China, portraying it as a nation not observing global rules and norms, despite China's track record in the past decades showing otherwise. China is a member of almost all the global multilateral institutions and has been playing along for decades under the rules set by the US and other Western nations.

But global institutions and global rules need to evolve to adapt to the new reality: a rising China that is the world's second-largest economy as well as the rise of other emerging economies.

The US is apparently not ready to accept a world where it will no longer be the dominant power to call shots on every single global issue.

In his new book Obama's Challenge to China: The Pivot to Asia, ChiWang, co-chair of the US-China Policy Foundation, criticizes the Obama administration of moving from more reassurance than deterrence in its policy toward China in the past to more deterrence than reassurance over the last few years.

People can almost feel Obama's eagerness to seek an enemy, both domestic and foreign, when he chided Republican presidential candidates on Nov 3 for their CNBC debate performance. "And then it turns out they can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators," Obama said. "If you can't handle those guys, then I don't think the Chinese and Russians are going to be too worried about you."

That certainly does not sound like a US president who wants to work with others, but rather one that wants to work against others.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com