潘文:《美丽国度与中央王国:1776年至今美中关系考》（英文）

John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present

John Pomfret, a former China correspondent who has long been a keen observer of the relationship between China and the United States, has recently published a well-timed book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom. Just as the two countries have experienced tension in their relationship, Pomfret’s history of the relationship between the two countries reminds us that the China-US bond is deep, with more than two hundred years of history. Pomfret’s book is an attempt to track the relationship between these two massive countries from its beginning to the present moment. Pomfret’s history is the best in this class of books since the 1983 history of John Fairbanks, The United States and China. His argument is that the relationship has lasted longer than most actors on either side realize. China-US relations did not begin with Henry Kissinger, but rather began at the earliest stage of the existence of the United States as a country.