In our office at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington, nine feet of bookshelves are dedicated to the 44 loose-leaf binders holding summaries of hundreds of agreements reached between negotiators representing the US and the People’s Republic of China. In alphabetical order they range from Agriculture to Visas. The largest binder is Trade, with agreements stretching back to 1979. The smallest is Tourism with a reciprocal agreement allowing tourism offices to be opened in each country.

The binders do not just catalogue three decades of bargaining, trans-Pacific flights by thousands of negotiators, and untold tons of burnt jet fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. They also catalogue the failure of America’s naive expectations that China would honour its many commitments. They demonstrate the futility of relying on Beijing’s promises of serious reform, when China’s leadership is convinced change threatens the Communist party’s authoritarian rule.

Opening tourism offices is easy enough, but opening an office of the US Food and Drug Administration in China to conduct safety inspections? Not so easy. If the more important agreements described in those binders are ever to be fulfilled, Washington will have to come up with an entirely new way of negotiating with China – one that abandons the disappointing and perpetual cycle of promises made, promises broken, promises repeated.