By Zhong Sheng, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently met with U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the 31st APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru. This meeting was held one year after the last time that the two Presidents met, and marked their first interaction after the just-finished U.S. presidential election, receiving great attention from the international community.
The two sides reviewed the journey of China-U.S. relations over the past four years, and drew experiences and inspirations from it. Their conversation was candid, in-depth and constructive. It focused on advancing dialogue and cooperation and properly managing differences during the transition period of the U.S. government and on regional and international issues of mutual interest, and charted the course for bilateral relations.
Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have gone through ups and downs, but under the stewardship of the two Presidents, the two sides have also been engaged in dialogue and cooperation, and bilateral ties have remained stable on the whole.
In his interactions with Biden, Xi fully shared his views on how the two sides should approach bilateral relations, which provide strategic guidance and are important for the direction of this relationship.
Xi vividly compared the relationship between China and the U.S. to a mansion. During the virtual meeting with Biden in 2021, he proposed that China and the U.S. should respect each other, coexist in peace, and pursue win-win cooperation, which is the dome of the mansion.
During the 2022 Bali meeting, he underscored China’s four red lines on the Taiwan question, path and system, democracy and human rights, and right to development, which is the foundation of the mansion.
During the meeting in San Francisco in 2023, he stated that China and the U.S. should jointly develop a right perception, manage disagreements effectively, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, shoulder responsibilities as major countries and promote people-to-people exchanges, which are the five pillars of the mansion.
China and the U.S. should jointly contribute to the high building of the mansion, so as to push for the stable, healthy and sustainable development of bilateral relations.
Strategic perception is the fundamental and overarching issue in China-U.S. relations. The Thucydides Trap is not a historical inevitability. A new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won. Containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail.
When the two countries treat each other as partners and seek common ground while shelving differences, their relationship will make considerable progress. But if they regard each other as rivals and pursue vicious competition, they will roil the relationship or even set it back.
As two major countries, neither China nor the U.S. should seek to remodel the other according to one’s own will, suppress the other from the so-called “position of strength,” or deprive the other of the legitimate right to development so as to maintain its leading status.
Contradictions and differences between two major countries like China and the U.S. are unavoidable. But one side should not undermine the core interests of the other, let alone seek conflict or confrontation. The one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiques are the political foundation of China-U.S. relations.
China and the U.S. have deeply intertwined interests, with boundless potential for cooperation.
Economically, the two countries’ total trade has exceeded $660 billion, and over 70,000 American companies are doing business in China, earning a profit of $50 billion annually. In terms of employment, exports to China alone support 930,000 jobs in the U.S., and Chinese investment has also created more jobs in the country. In terms of livelihood, Chinese products have not only offered American consumers more choices but also lowered costs for them.
Among the new outlets of McDonald’s opened last year, about 60% were in China; More than half of Tesla’s global deliveries of electric vehicles last year originated from its gigafactory in Shanghai; and Starbucks is running over 1,000 stores in Shanghai, topping the world.
These examples of mutually beneficial cooperation have proved that under the current circumstances, common interests between China and the U.S. are expanding rather than shrinking. They should always advance the well-being of the two peoples, expand the list of cooperation, and make a bigger pie of cooperation to achieve a win-win result.
It is a shared consensus between the two sides that a stable China-U.S. relationship is critical not only to the interests of the two peoples, but also to the future of the entire humanity.
As humanity is faced with unprecedented challenges in this turbulent world suffering from frequent conflicts, the two countries should always keep in mind humanity’s future and their responsibilities for world peace, provide public good for the world, and act in a way conducive to global unity.
Major-country competition should not be the underlying logic of the times; only solidarity and cooperation can help humanity overcome current difficulties. Neither decoupling nor supply-chain disruption is the solution; common development can only be achieved through mutually beneficial cooperation. “Small yard, high fences” is not what a major country should do; only openness and sharing can advance the well-being of humanity.
It is important for China and the U.S. to assume the vision, shoulder the responsibility, and play the role that come along with their status as major countries. This is the only way forward for the two countries to be responsible for history, for the people and for the world, and earn respect from the international community.
Xi stressed that China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-U.S. relationship remains unchanged; its commitment to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation as principles for handling China-U.S. relations remains unchanged; its position of resolutely safeguarding China’s sovereignty, security and development interests remains unchanged; and its desire to carry forward the traditional friendship between the Chinese and American peoples remains unchanged.
This shows that China is ready to engage in dialogue, expand cooperation, and manage differences with the incoming U.S. government so as to maintain stability in China-U.S. relations to the benefits of the two countries and the world at large.
To ensure a smooth transition of the China-U.S. relationship, both sides should follow the seven-point common understandings on the guiding principles for China-U.S. relations, namely treating each other with respect, finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully, maintaining open lines of communication, preventing conflict, upholding the United Nations Charter, cooperating in areas of shared interest, and responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship.
Currently, the China-U.S. relationship once again stands at a crossroads. The two peoples and the international community expect the stable development of China-U.S. relations. It is hoped that the U.S. will work in the same direction with China, keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along with each other, realize long-term, peaceful coexistence on this planet, and inject more certainty and positive energy into the world.
