Next week's planned visit to U.N. disarmament talks in Washington by Chinese President Hu Jintao comes at a time when U.S.-China relations have taken a downward turn.

After high hopes for President Obama's visit last fall to Beijing, the December climate change conference in Copenhagen resulted in a major setback. More recently, disputes have erupted around Tibet, arms sales to Taiwan, China's currency valuation, the Google China controversy and proposed legislation by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that would impose tariffs on Chinese products imported to this country, raising the specter of a trade war.

Such tension is in part the residue of Cold War tensions between the United States and China, despite the latter's revolutionary shift to a market economy. Another considerable factor is that this is an election year here at home, and that a major shift of power is also in the offing in Beijing. The leaders of both nations are, as usual, directing their rhetoric toward their domestic constituents.

But too much is at stake in U.S.-China relations to allow a promising and powerful collaboration to be undermined for any reason. The United States needs China to buy its debt or our economy cannot function, and the nations have a reason to collaborate on an increasing number of global hot spots, including Iran and North Korea. China, the world's manufacturing behemoth, needs the U.S. market and, accordingly, is counting on an economic recovery in the United States even as it seeks to grow its own market for domestic consumption not only of Chinese-made products but also of American brands. The convergence of these interests can be seen in the sleek black Buick automobile that is a status symbol in the prosperous coastal cities of the Middle Kingdom - an iconic American brand, a new Asian design.

Indeed, the entire world stands to suffer greatly if this bilateral relationship is allowed to devolve. Think of what might be possible if the United States and China found a way to partner on issues of climate change and alternative energy. In this area alone, there is much to be gained if the two nations cooperate, and almost unimaginable suffering to follow if the United States and China cannot find a way forward together.

Here at home, Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans worry about racism as an element in the U.S.-China dynamic. Though rarely referred to overtly, it is nonetheless a very real element in the Asian American community's fear of backlash. Anger about Asia and Asians can be colored by stereotypes, adversely affecting Americans of Asian descent who are assimilated and loyal to this country.

In the 1980s, when domestic car companies were engaged in fierce competition with their Japanese counterparts, two autoworkers in the Detroit area beat to death a Chinese American named Vincent Chin - they mistook him as Japanese. Today, it is easy to blame China for the global change that shifts jobs from one part of the world to another yet, by the same token, provides an abundance of affordable products for American consumers.

Some are hoping that Presidents Obama and Hu will find time next week to talk, and that this might lead to a "U-turn" in U.S.-China relations. We dearly hope so. Both nations must, to paraphrase a Chinese proverb, "seek common ground while respecting differences."

John Chen is president and CEO of Sybase in Dublin and chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of leading Chinese Americans whose annual conference begins Thursday in San Francisco. Frank Wu is the newly appointed chancellor and dean of the UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and the author of "Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White."