Xi: China, US must end confrontation
Print Edition
CHINA and the United States yesterday vowed to improve their economic and security cooperation, with President Xi Jinping urging the world’s two biggest economies to break old patterns of confrontation.
Opening this year’s “Strategic and Economic Dialogue,” Xi stressed the need to avoid confrontation between the nations accounting for a quarter of the world’s people and a third of the global economy.
Sino-US cooperation is of vital importance to the global community, the president said.
“China-US confrontation, to the two countries and the world, would definitely be a disaster,” he said.
“We should respect and treat each other equally, and respect the other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and respect each other’s choice on the path of development.”
Given their different histories and cultures “it is natural that China and the US may have different views and even frictions on certain issues,” the president said on the opening of the two-day talks in Beijing.
“This is what makes communication and cooperation even more necessary,” he said, speaking in the same compound where then US President Richard Nixon met Chairman Mao Zedong on his groundbreaking visit to China in 1972.
The sixth annual talks opened as tensions between the two nations have risen in recent months wracked by differences over maritime claims, cyberhacking and currency.
“Our interests are more than ever interconnected,” Xi said, adding that the two nations “stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”
“If we are in confrontation it will surely spell disaster for both countries and for the world,” he said, adding the Pacific powers needed to “break the old pattern of inevitable confrontation.”
“One can ill afford a mistake on fundamental issues, a mistake that may possibly ruin the whole undertaking,” Xi said.
In a statement sent to the opening of the talks, US President Barack Obama agreed, saying: “The United States and China will not always see eye-to-eye on every issue.”
That is “why we need to build our relationship around common challenges, mutual responsibilities and shared interests, even while we candidly address our differences,” he said.
Obama, who has made the so-called pivot to Asia a focus of his administration, will return to the Chinese capital in November when China hosts a key summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is leading Washington’s team with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, told the delegations the US was committed to a “new model” of great country ties with China.
“We have a profound stake in each other’s success”, he said.
“It is not lost on any of us that throughout history there has been a pattern of strategic rivalry between rising and established powers.”
But Kerry sought to address Chinese concerns.
“The United States does not seek to contain China, we welcome the emergence of a peaceful, stable, prosperous China that contributes to the stability and development of the region and chooses to play a responsible role in world affairs,” he said.
“We may differ on one issue or another but when we make that difference, do not interpret it as an overall strategy”, he said.
The talks come as China and its neighbors have stepped up patrols of disputed waters in the East and South China Seas.
While Xi didn’t address the territorial issues directly, he said China is committed to establishing “friendly relations with its neighbors.”
Kerry will also seek to persuade China to reinstate a cybersecurity working group in a bid to draw up rules for using and protecting the Internet.
The group, which has met only twice, was cancelled by China after the US indicted five Chinese military officers for hacking into US businesses — charges dismissed by China as “intentionally fabricated.”
This year marks 35 years since the establishment of formal US-China ties, and trade between the two ballooned to more than US$520 billion last year.
(AFP/Reuters)
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
