Xi's visit to boost prospects of ties

With President Xi Jinping set to kick off his state visit to the United States on Wednesday, leading scholars from both countries expressed hope that the world's two largest economies, driven by head-of-state diplomacy, can find more areas for cooperation and shore up the prospects for improved global governance.

Counting this visit and US President Donald Trump's state visit to China in May, the two countries will reach a milestone with the exchange of state visits within half a year, officials and experts said.

When they met in May, Xi and Trump agreed on a new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Tuesday that China is willing to work with the US to "enrich the substance" of a China-US constructive relationship of strategic stability.

China is willing to "strengthen dialogue and cooperation with the US, properly manage differences, constantly enhance the well-being of the peoples of both countries, and promote world peace, stability and prosperity", he told reporters in Beijing.

Calling the current China-US relationship "very much a leader-driven relationship", Elizabeth Knup, special adviser to China Focus at The Carter Center, a US-based think tank, said both countries "need to shrink what is competitive and expand what is not competitive, and hopefully that is what is happening".

"One of the most positive examples of US-China collaboration at the global level was the previous Ebola outbreak, where the US and China each brought their strength together to help address that outbreak in Africa," she said, highlighting the need for both countries to work together.

In their bilateral relationship, the US and China have made some progress on the fentanyl issue, and "that continues to move forward", she said.

"I hope that we can find some other areas, maybe academic exchange, where we can start to have a concrete discussion and (find) concrete ways to solve the problem," she added.

Su Xiaohui, an associate research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said Xi's visit this week shows that China-US relations are "generally proceeding along the path of constructive strategic stability charted by the two heads of state".

"Head-of-state diplomacy will once again play a strategic leading role in China-US relations. President Xi's visit to the US will serve as an important opportunity for the two heads of state to engage in strategic communication once again," she said.

The international community is paying close attention to China-US head-of-state diplomacy and wants to see more promising prospects of China-US cooperation, which can offer greater certainty amid the current international situation, Su said.

Earlier this year, law enforcement authorities from both countries joined hands in cracking several drug-related cases, such as a transnational case involving precursors used to manufacture synthetic cannabinoids.

On Sunday, China and the US held a new round of economic and trade talks in New York. In addition to economic and trade issues and the implementation of the consensuses reached at previous rounds of talks, the two sides also discussed artificial intelligence.

Su, the CIIS scholar, said that since Trump's visit to China in May, bilateral cooperation "has been more stable and improved in multiple areas".

"There is strong hope that economic and trade relations will continue to serve as the ballast and driving force of China-US relations, rather than a stumbling block or source of conflict," she added.

Observers said the two leaders can give a boost to global unity by advancing agendas on key common concerns.

Carla Freeman, a senior lecturer for international affairs and director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said it is a very positive factor that the two leaders have opportunities to meet.

This can lead to "a more sustained, stable relationship", and "we can use this opportunity for the two leaders to meet to build more institutional arrangements" in order to help achieve that stability, she said.

zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn