BEIJING, July 09. /ITAR-TASS/. Confrontation between China and the US would be a disaster, both countries should respect each other’s sovereignty, Chinese president Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, opening the sixth round of the US-China strategic and economic dialogue, where the US delegation is led by Secretary of State John Kerry.
Problems in China-US relations were not to be feared as long as both sides tried to overcome them, the Chinese president said, describing the model of the two countries’ relations as an unprecedented example in history.
China and the US had overcome difficulties and continued moving on over the last 35 years thanks to the leaders’ understanding of the contemporary situation, Xi Jinping said. Both countries should apply creative thinking to open new horizons in bilateral cooperation, he added.
Xi Jinping recalled the last-summer agreement with the US President Barack Obama about the relations of new kind, confirmed by both leaders in St. Petersburg and The Hague, and said the countries had made progress since then. The president assured that disagreements over details and approaches to certain issues should not hamper fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation in the international interests.
The countries should communicate on trade relations, mutual investment, innovation, cooperate on security, fight terrorism and climate change, compare notes on major international issues and communicate through the media and research institutes, the president believes.
Indeed, the two countries differ over a number of issues to be discussed during the two-day visit. Beijing and Washington have opposing views of security architecture in the Asia Pacific, where the US implements the so-called rebalance of power and boosts its military presence - up to 60% of the US armed forces, by analysts’ estimates.
The countries also clash over the Iranian nuclear program, security on the Korean peninsula, territorial disputes in the South China and East China Seas and the reasons of the Ukraine crisis. Besides, Beijing and Washington accuse each other of cyber espionage.
In the field of economics, the total trade turnover of about $520 billion has a serious disbalance towards China, which Washington blames on China’s artificially keeping the yuan cheap. Besides, neither wants to lift limitations on mutual investments in a number of spheres and considerably restrict innovation cooperation.
Here, the delegations have already made progress. According to the Chinese Deputy Finance Minister Zhu Guanyao, Beijing and Washington can open new economic sectors for mutual investments. The investment agreement, if finalized, can become a milestone in the history of the two countries’ economic relations, the official believes.