Opinion

BEIJING -- A Chinese academician who specializes in US affairs said here on Tuesday that China and the United States have become increasingly interdependent and the development of bilateral relationship affects world peace and prosperity.

Tuesday was the 30th anniversary of the signing of a joint communique, in which China and the United States announced that they were to resume diplomatic ties as of January 1, 1979.

In a signed article in Tuesday's People's Daily, professor Shen Dingli of Shanghai's Fudan University said China and the United States have forged "equal, mature and stable" ties over the past 30 years.

Shen Dingli

"Thirty years of contacts have convinced the two that only through dialogue and cooperation could they achieve win-win results," said Shen, who is also director of the university's Center on the American Studies.

This is also the 30th anniversary of China's economic reforms, which have turned the once poverty-stricken country into one of the world's largest economies.

Shen said China's economic growth benefited from other countries' cooperation, including that of the United States.

"The US side has responded positively to China's reforms and opening-up policies," he said.

Shen said as bilateral ties deepened, the United States has found that it needed China's cooperation to fight terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and maintain stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

The United States also has great expectations of the growing Chinese market and sees China's economic restructuring as providing great business opportunities, he said.

The professor said the world had changed significantly from the Cold War, when the world was locked in the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

"Now the United States is still outstanding in power, but some newly emerging countries have begun to play increasingly important roles," Shen said. He added that with the changes, China and and the United States have shown more respect and concern for each other's core interests.

Shen said China and the United States still have many differences. But he believed "the two governments will manage relations efficiently and will not let any individual issue block the stable development of their ties."

He said differences in social systems and ideology had formerly seriously damaged relations between China and the United States. Given the changing world situation, "how the two countries should get on with each other is still a key task facing the two governments in the long run," he ?said.

The United States is China's second-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade of $302.08 billion in 2007.