Looking to the future, cooperative moves by both sides will likely take place in a “parallel” rather than joint fashion. Whether the issue is North Korea or Iran, commercial or currency differences, release of imprisoned dissidents or increasing press freedoms, Beijing’s ability to appear to be overtly cooperating with a US agenda will be severely constrained by domestic nationalistic pressures and bureaucratic constituencies. The Chinese military, internal security and intelligence services, protected domestic industries, and the Communist Party propaganda apparatus all have vested institutional interests in countering American influence and, to some extent, benefit from an antagonistic relationship with the United States. For its part, the US military, intelligence services, protectionist and xenophobic elements in Congress, the human rights community, and other domestic actors similarly have a stake in an adversarial relationship with China.