“We’ll compete with confidence; we’ll cooperate wherever we can; we’ll contest where we must.” That’s the new China strategy as outlined by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this year. But just exactly how countries should deal with China—including working with it, when the times call for it—is perhaps the thorniest question in international relations right now, at least in the West.

Scott Moore gives his framework on the US and China in China’s Next Act: How Sustainability and Technology are Reshaping China’s Rise and the World’s Future. With reference to issues like public health, AI and biotechnology, he gives his views on how the U.S. should approach China—cooperation, competition or conflict.

In this interview, Scott and I talk about the US-China relationship, how it’s changed–and how US-China competition could, under the right circumstances, still lead to global progress.

Scott M Moore is Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of the Provost as well as a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Moore was previously a Young Professional with the World Bank Group and served as Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer for China at the U.S. Department of State. He is also the author of Subnational Hydropolitics: Conflict, Cooperation, and Institution-Building in Shared River Basins (Oxford University Press). You can follow Scott on Twitter at @water_futures.

Nicholas Gordon has an MPhil from Oxford in International Relations and a BA from Harvard. He is a writer, editor and occasional radio host based in Hong Kong.