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Top bilateral meeting opens amid outstanding concerns
By Wu Jiao and Ai Yang (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-25 07:49
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Beijing - China and the United States opened two days of top meetings on Monday, to build bilateral ties and face outstanding issues between the world's largest developed and developing economies.
President Hu Jintao, welcoming the 200-strong US delegation in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, praised the "mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation" between the US and China.
Hu also addressed the crucial issue of the exchange rate of China's currency, the yuan, and pledged to "steadily advance the reform mechanism of the yuan exchange rate".
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2010 China-US S&ED
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, dressed in a green overcoat, also cited the proverb Shu Tu Tong Gui, which in Chinese means "different paths leading to the same goal", to describe the relations between China and US as countries with different civilizations and histories.
"The United States welcomes China's progress and its accomplishments. And by establishing patterns of cooperation, rather than competition between our two countries, we see the opportunity for win-win solutions, rather than zero-sum rivalries," Clinton said in the opening session.
She also brought with her a letter from US President Barack Obama, who wrote that the Sino-US relationship is "guided by the recognition that we live in an inter-connected world. One country's success need not come at the expense of another".
Still, disputes between the two countries remain.
Bilateral ties since the first S&ED last year have faced friction intensified by a wide range of issues, from US trade protectionism and Chinese currency reform, to Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama and the $6.5-billion Taiwan arms sale, which led to China postponing military-to-military exchanges.
US-based search giant Google's pullout from China this year also generated fresh rows concerning Internet policy and the environment for foreign investment in China.
The second S&ED is putting Iranian nuclear issues and development on the Korean Peninsula, as well as cyber security and military-to-military relations, on its agenda, said Chinese delegation spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, without giving details.
The US has pressed China to follow suit in regional issues such as Iran and the Korean Peninsula but China has said it remains committed to its own path in these matters.
It is unrealistic to predict that the two-day dialogue will settle all disputes, but the dialogue might reset ties and save them from constant turbulence, analysts said.
Yuan Peng, head of US studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said that the gray areas in the bilateral relations are volatile and the battles at the beginning of the year have given full play to the problems. It is time for each side to review the other and reset the relations on a strategic and long-term perspective, Yuan said.
Yuan Zheng, a researcher on the US with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the dialogue comes at a crucial time in bilateral ties. It will set their tone for the long term and the framework for future relations.
"The most important outcome that I would expect from this S&ED is a clearing of the air," said Dean Cheng, a research fellow of the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation. Cheng also said the dialogues may provide a chance to "reset" US-China relations.
"Hu's decision to participate in the Nuclear Security Summit in April and the delay of the Treasury Department's report regarding Chinese currency, provided an opportunity to put things on hold it is important that Beijing and Washington maintain at least cordial relations," Cheng said.
Zhong Nan, Tan Yingzi and agencies contribute to this story.