AmCham Shanghai President: CIIE is a great platform for developing China-U.S. trading relationship

Editor's note: The sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE) is taking place in Shanghai from November 5 to 10. What is the special appeal of the CIIE to U.S. companies? What does China's high-level opening-up bring to the rest of the world? To explain the concept of China's development, CGTN has launched the "Chinese Modernization: Sharing Prosperity" series. In this episode, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai Eric Zheng shares his thoughts. The views expressed in the video are his own and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Eric Zheng: I think the U.S. and China have always enjoyed a substantial trading relationship. Last year, the bilateral trade volume amounted to over roughly about $700 billion. And for the U.S. side, it exported goods and products to China last year which amounted to over $150 billion of worth.

Of course, in the past few years, the two countries certainly are trying to work on certain issues, political issues and otherwise.

In addition to competition – people focus a lot on that side of the relationship – I think cooperation remains very, very important for the bilateral relationship. For agriculture, it shouldn't be controversial, right? It is win-win for both sides. And China is a net importer of agricultural products, and the U.S. is very strong in its agricultural products, and U.S. farmers would love to export products to China and other parts of the world.

You probably heard that a few days ago, very recently, the two countries signed deals to import agricultural products from the U.S. So we'd like to see more of these cooperation initiatives. And I think CIIE is a very great platform and it's great that we expect to see some senior visitors from the U.S. And that's a very positive sign that the two sides are working more closely together.

We're talking about two largest economies in the world, number one and number two, that have enjoyed a substantial a commercial relationship over the past decades, particularly since China opened to the outside world and particularly since China joined the WTO.

I think both sides actually have benefitted from this relationship. We're looking for win-win solutions here, and not zero sum. Decoupling is not an option because decoupling is in no country's interests. Not in the interest of China, nor in the interest of the United States. Our members, U.S. companies, have been here for decades and they've grown tremendously over the past decades together with the growth of this country. So we'd like to continue to work in this country for the benefits of both sides, for both countries and both people.

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