Dialogue crucial to push froward China-U.S. ties
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China and the United States have wrapped up the two-day high-level talks in Beijing. The event, which brings together the world's biggest economy and largest emerging market, is desirable and crucial.
As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has put it, such large-scale dialogue, which involved so many departments and touched a broad range of topics, was rarely seen in the world.
The two sides signed agreements covering trade, environment, energy and disease control at or on the sidelines of the second round of China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogues that ended Tuesday, underscoring the value of the communication platform.
Officials from both sides hailed the results of the dialogues, though critics downplayed it by claiming that expectations about the deliverables of these agreements were low.
The dialogue itself certainly does represent a great progress, after a period at the start of this year when China-U.S. relations appeared to be deteriorating rapidly which had raised the spectre of a trade war.
"It is better for China and the United States to have dialogue rather than engaging in confrontation," said Premier Wen.
With the two sides "coming together with open mind, getting to know the key players, developing a better appreciation of one another's points of view, this is a benefit of its own," said Gary Bertsch, visiting professor at China Foreign Affairs University.
For two countries that are far apart from each other, at different development stages, and nurtured by different cultures, it is inevitable for misunderstanding, which can have major implications not only to the bilateral relationship but also to the world. Candid dialogue is obviously the best way to blow away such misunderstanding.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole world needs cooperation between China and the United States to solve major global issues, for instance, balancing global economy and addressing climate change.
"I won't say it (China-U.S. relationship) is the most important one in the 21st century because we are just at the beginning of the century, but it certainly is the extremely important bilateral relationship by the present time and for the foreseeable future," said Professor Richard Cooper of the International Economics from Harvard University during a talk show with Xinhua Wednesday.
Economic globalization makes the two countries more inter-dependent, and even minor change in the relationship would have global ramifications.
"We don't have other alternative and we have to work together as the two countries are in the same boat," said Wang Yong, professor from Peking University.
The dialogue covers issues that are not only relevant to China and the United States, but nearly all the problems facing the mankind, from economic rebalancing, financial regulation to global warming.
Such a dialogue, with two countries getting together to talk and involved to exchange perspectives on global developments and to have authoritative explanations of policies in each of the countries, is extremely useful even if no agreements are reached, Cooper said.
In this case, however, the two countries did reach consensus on several issues, for example, China vowed to submit a robust revised offer to the committee of the Agreement on Government Procurement before July while the United States agreed to save more to boost growth.
However, no one could expect a two-day meeting to settle all the disputes and problems, even if it was considered as "fruitful" and "productive."
The two countries would find ways to work these out through increasing exchanges and cooperation. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, the United States and China, though traveled different paths, share common destination and responsibility.
