China's decision to suspend cooperation with the United States on issues such as climate change and drug trafficking after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has raised questions about how long the situation will drag on and whether things can get worse.
Officials from both sides have previously cited climate change and narcotics as examples of how they could try to work together despite confrontations in almost every other sphere, ranging from trade and the South China Sea to Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
The suspension of climate talks comes after a phone call between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping last week, when they tasked their teams to follow up on work to tackle climate change despite rising tensions in other areas.
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Zhu Feng, an international relations specialist from Nanjing University, said: "It is definitely not good news for improving and stabilising China-US relations. The two Presidents just talked on July 28 and stressed the need to facilitate a dialogue mechanism between their working teams.
"Because China-US cooperation is very important not only for bilateral relations but also for global issues such as emissions reduction."
He said he thought it was unlikely that these countermeasures would last long, adding: "It's China's angry response, but I don't think it will last too long or China-US relations will keep deteriorating."
Lu Xiang, a specialist on US-China relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the suspension of cooperation meant: "Bilateral relations have deteriorated to the lowest point since the normalisation of relations between the two countries in 1979, and possibly they are on the edge of conflict.
"We said the China-US relations were at their lowest point during the Trump era, but the current situation is even worse."
US climate envoy John Kerry wrote on Twitter that China's announcement was "both disappointing and misguided".
"The climate crisis is not a bilateral issue, it's universal," Kerry tweeted. "Suspending cooperation doesn't punish the United States - it punishes the world, particularly the developing world."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday: "We should not hold hostage cooperation on matters of global concern because of differences between our two countries.