Highlight – Building US-China relationship requires joint efforts

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Today, China-US relationship attracts global attention. China-US rivalry, many now believe, has become far broader and more entrenched, including geopolitical competition, science and technology competition, and differing views on some key issues.

The majority of the people, however, are calling for closer relationship and cooperation between the two economic giants so as to bring more benefits not only to China and the United States, but also to the whole world.

How will China's foreign diplomacy change at this sensitive time? What advice will experts give to each side? R. L. Kuhn discussed these issues with Stephen A. Orlins, President of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

The sixth round of China-US high-level economic and trade consultations in Beijing, February 15, 2019. /VCG·Photo

According to Orlins, on the economic side, the 3rd plenary of the 18th CPC National Congress laid out a series of reforms that, if implemented, would have eliminated many of the structural issues in the US-China trade and investment dispute.

As for the United States, many economists feel that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) set a high-level example of what the U.S. wants from trade and investment partners throughout the world.

Could this TPP vision help China assess where it should be going? If the TPP could have some kind of path for China's accession, could it give China a way to complete its reform and opening up that President Xi advocates?

On the strategic side, Orlins added that the United States needs to get off the idea that China is a strategic competitor, and to realize that what is damaging to the United States is also damaging to China.