Despite their different systems, China and U.S. can agree on the common commitment to improving people's livelihood, turning their respective infrastructure programs into an area of cooperation rather than competition, said William Cuthbert Jones, Washington Bureau Chief of the Executive Intelligence Review from the U.S. at the International Forum on Democracy on Sunday.

China's Belt and Road Initiative and technological breakthroughs have been perceived as threats to the U.S.-led global order and triggered geopolitical tensions similar to that from the Cold War era, Jones said. China and the U.S. must find a unifying principle that would lie in "the general agreement that nations must be committed to improving their people's livelihood," he added.