China and US should move forward regardless of election result

Whoever is elected as the new president of the United States, be it the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton or her Republican counterpart Donald Trump, constructive corrections will have to be made to improve the China-US ties, said a veteran US expert on China-US relations.

David Lampton, director of the China Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the US, offered solutions and elaborated on why there is plenty of hope for better bilateral relations, at a Beijing-based seminar hosted by the Center for China and Globalization on Thursday.

"The US is a decentralized country and its 50 states can make their own economic policies. They are China's natural allies and could be the stabilizers in the China-US relationship," he said. Many US states have enjoyed benign agricultural exchanges with China and their primary concern is their economic well-being, hence China should make friends with them, be they Democratic or Republican, he said.

"We should seek to build common, economic, and security institutions, as well as invest in each other," Lampton said. It was unfortunate that the US government's initial reaction to the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was "no", instead of being involved economically, he said.

When it comes to security concerns, China should also improve the relations with its neighbors, including the Philippines and Japan, otherwise they would try to get the US involved, which can make things unnecessarily more complicated, he said.

Clinton is more likely to be the winner of this year's presidential election, Lampton predicted. He said the chances of Clinton winning the election could reach 60 percent or even higher. "If there was a 9/11-style terrorist attack that killed thousands of Americans, that would change the environment overnight."

Clinton has a better campaign organization and is a seasoned debater, he said. Mostly backed by angry white males, Trump has alienated women, a group that accounts for almost half the vote, and black people too, he added. "He benefits when people are afraid."