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herself to the outside world after a long and deep isolation and as one of the world's strongest military and economic powers, what the United States said and did about China was often taken too seriously by political leaders as well as average citizens. All these psychological and geo-political considerations have made the United States, whose interests could be incompatible with China's from time to time, an important factor in China's stability and development.
In culture, the American image among the Chinese people was to some degree disproportionately favourable. The assumption that American cultural products were the best has become a simple truth to many. This lopsided understanding of the United States and its culture had undermined the Chinese vision of other cultures in the world which could also contribute to China's modernization. As China is striving towards making itself an open society, it will need to be even more closely associated with international developments. Therefore, an objective and well-balanced understanding of the world is more than necessary. To meet that end, China's arts exchanges with foreign countries should be balanced, the treatment of other cultures should be objective and sufficient, and above all, arts exchanges should be less frequently requested to serve direct political objectives in external relations. In China's relations with the United States, we have seen that cultural exchanges were inextricably interwoven with political developments in China and in the bilateral relationship. When linked with the right political objectives, this inextricability generated positive effects. However, negative results can also derive from such a political affiliation. If relations between the two countries are solely determined by political developments, then an unstable relationship will be unavoidable, due to the periodic change of administration in the United States and the periodical policy reassessments in China. Furthermore, the separation of external arts exchanges from objectives other than the enrichment of culture will enhance China's open policy, which will in turn benefit China's cultural life. Specifically, the healthy results for China of Sino-American arts exchanges will depend largely on whether these requirements can be fulfilled.