Foreign and Military Affairs

US-China ties in healthy condition: US experts

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-26 10:11

WASHINGTON - The US-China relationship is healthy and mature, with significant implications on the rest of the world, some US experts said at a seminar here Wednesday.

"If you look at the current US-China relationship, it is healthy in that it is now quite pragmatic on both sides," said Kenneth Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.

"I don't think there is a lot of illusion out there about the nature of the relationship, the issues they are confronted and the ways to manage them," Lieberthal said.

Lieberthal was among several distinguished speakers attending a seminar co-sponsored by China Daily, China's leading English-language newspaper, and the US-China Policy Foundation, to celebrate China Daily's 30th birthday. The paper is now also published in some US and European cities.

"Both sides recognize candidly our differences in histories, cultures, values and interests, and there are issues on which we do not agree," Lieberthal said.

"But both sides also recognize very clearly that we have parallel interests that should keep us mindful of the need not to let disagreements on specific issues wash over to poison the overall relationship," he said.

He also said the US-China relationship is mature as both countries are getting a better understanding of each other and have learned how to manage most of the specific issues that emerge.

"There is a long history of management of tough issues so that we know how to signal that we want things to get better, we know how to keep things from getting out of hand," he said. "Overall, I think our relationship is very wide-ranging, candid, pragmatic, and highly valued on both sides."

James Sasser, who served as US ambassador to China from 1995 to 1999 during the Clinton administration, said he was very optimistic about the future of US-China relations.

Many things have bound the two countries together, he told Xinhua, adding both countries have a vested interest in cooperating with and showing mutual respect to each other, which will result in mutual benefit.

"I think there will be difficult questions, but I'm very optimistic that statesmen on both sides, China and the United States, can resolve these difficult questions, and live ahead cooperatively," he said.

Other guest speakers attending the seminar included Stapleton Roy, also former US ambassador to China; former Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman, and Richard Solomon, president of the US Institute of Peace.

Almost all the experts present believed the relationship between the world's two largest economies has significant implications on the rest of the world.

"Everyone has recognized that, without collaboration between China and America, the world will be a more troubled, less secure, and less prosperous place," said Freeman, who served as the principal American interpreter during late US President Nixon's visit to China in 1972.

"Problems ranging from climate change to dysfunctions in the global trading and investment regime can not be tackled effectively without China-US cooperation and leadership," he said.