WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- Dealing with China will be the biggest challenge for the incoming U.S. administration on the diplomatic front and the two superpowers, dubbed G-2, need to work together for more sophisticated contingency plans for North Korea's possible collapse, former and current top U.S. diplomats on Asia said Thursday.
The China issue will be "the most consequential foreign policy challenge that we will ever face, much more difficult than any relationship that we've had in the preceding years," Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said.
He was attending a forum on Asia policy ahead of the U.S. presidential elections next week, joined by three of his predecessors -- Christopher Hill, Richard Solomon and Winston Lord.
It was quite extraordinary for the former and current veteran American diplomats to sit down together for discussions on Asia.
Campbell said either the second Obama administration or the Romney government needs to seek China policy in line with a broader Asia strategy.
"My only recommendation.... is that there is a deep recognition that good China policy is best done when it is embedded in an Asian strategy," he stressed. "And that good China policy doesn't mean just going to Beijing. It means working in the neighborhood, working to ensure that other countries are with you in dialogue and discussions on issues of mutual concern."
Campbell reiterated Washington's claim that its recent rebalancing towards the Asia-Pacific region is not aimed at containing China.
He pointed out that every nation in Asia wants to improve its relationship with China.
Hill, who was in charge of the department's East Asia policy for four years till 2009, cautioned against negative effects from the stated pivot toward Asia.
Since many Southeast Asian nations have benefited from China's growth, "It's not in our interest to make these countries choose between us and China," he said.
Hill expressed concerns that China will face internal instability when economic growth becomes unable to catch up with social demands amid growing nationalistic voices.
"When the political security state doesn't manage the economy, I think that is creating enormous social tensions," he said.
Hill, now dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, said the outside world does not know exactly what's going on in China.
"I think there are really some deep currents there that are running," he said, when asked about possible "surprises" during the coming years.
"I wouldn't be surprised if some big issue comes up in North Korea," he added.
Hill, who used to head Washington's nuclear talks with Pyongyang, said existing contingency plans in case of a sudden political change inside the secretive communist nation are not adequate.
"I'd like to sit down with the Chinese and make it abundantly clear to them what we would do and what we would not do in the event that North Korea somehow has a convulsion," he said.
He added, "I think it needs to be much more systematic, to the point where the Chinese actually start responding and we have a real conversation about it."
Solomon, who was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs from 1989-1992 and president of the U.S. Institute of Peace from 1993-2012, agreed to the importance of being well prepared for the possibility of instability in China and collapse of North Korea.
"China is now entering, my guess is, a very difficult period," he said, citing internal challenges from slowing economic growth and the spread of technological devices, including cellphones.
As the country enters its fifth-generation leadership, he added, it is confronted with "some very fundamental issues about can they open up the political process and dealing with a very substantial measure of distrust in the population."
China looks set for a formal decision to name Vice President Xi Jinping as the successor of President Hu Jintao in a key party congress this month.
Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state from 1993 to 1997, emphasized the uncertainty of Xi's leadership.
Lord introduced his conversations with two senior U.S. government officials after Vice President Joe Biden's meeting with Xi in Beijing last year.
He quoted an official, who accompanied Biden, as saying Xi seemed to be pragmatic.
But the other official said he appeared nationalistic, according to Lord. He would not identify both of the officials.
Lord worked as the U.S. ambassador to China from 1985-1989.
On North Korea, he said it is unlikely to follow the footsteps of Burma to take initial steps toward change.
"I really will be surprised if we have another Burma in North Korea. I just don't think it's going to happen," he said.
The forum was co-organized by Georgetown University and the Korea Economic Institute.