Expert urges progress in Sino-US ties

China and the United States need to realize that their bilateral relations have global ramifications, a renowned economic expert told a forum, calling for more efforts to understand the peaceful rise of China.

John Thornton, co-chair of the Board of Trustees of the Asia Society in the US, said the two top economies are expected to account for 60 percent of global GDP by 2050, up from 41 percent now.

In the past two years, Sino-US relations have been frosty, so more efforts are needed for the two sides to realize that their bilateral relations can affect countries around the world, he said.

Drawing from his two decades of working in Asia, Thornton said the rise of China is a very stable process, but it is still difficult for other countries to understand that.

Thornton made the comments at the Asia New Vision Forum organized by Chinese media Caixin. On Tuesday, Caixin showed a video of a dialogue between Thornton and Kishore Mahbubani, distinguished fellow of the Asia Research Institute, which is part of the National University of Singapore.

In the dialogue, Mahbubani said the US, for the first time, is beginning to realize it needs to reconsider whether its "all-out assault on China "works or not, as China is making very strong efforts to partner with countries around the world.

He said China's investments in Africa have made a huge difference and are helping Europe as well, because they are creating local jobs that can stop more Africans from seeking refuge in Europe.

Meanwhile, China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is bringing concrete benefits to the world. For instance, in Uzbekistan, it used to take several days to climb the mountains to go across from one side of the country to the other. In 900 days, the Chinese built a railway. Now, it takes only 900 seconds to travel the same distance. That explains why more than 160 countries and regions have joined the BRI, Mahbubani said.

Thornton said it is important for China to communicate its thought in a compelling way on the global stage, in order to deepen the world's understanding of the country.

At the Lanting Forum on Chinese Modernization and the World, held in Shanghai earlier this year, Thornton said: "The single most important thing for Chinese modernization is to figure out how to communicate the content in a compelling way through global communication channels so that everybody hears the same message.

"Who in the world is not in favor of peace? Who in the world is not in favor of common prosperity? Who in the world is not in favor of harmony between man and nature?

"And if at least in my country (the US), if people understood that this is what China believes in, this is what they stand for, this is where they see the future, then that will have a very positive impact on the relationship between the two countries."

Bilateral trade volume in 2022 recovered to the level before 2018, despite a string of additional trade tariffs that Washington had imposed on China, according to Yao Yang, president of the National School of Development at Peking University.

The Asia Society is a nonprofit organization focused on navigating shared futures for Asia and the world across policy, arts and culture, education, sustainability, business and technology.