On the eve of his official visit to the United States, Vice President Xi Jinping accepted a written interview with the Washington Post of the United States and answered questions covering China-U.S. relations, China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation, local and people-to-people exchanges, China-U.S. relations in the Asia-Pacific, and bilateral cooperation on international, regional and global issues.
In response to the question concerning the course of development of China-U.S. relations in the past 40 years, Xi Jinping said that 40 years before, the leaders of China and the United States, with the extraordinary wisdom and foresight of the statesmen, opened the dusty door of exchanges between the two countries. Despite of all the difficulties, China-U.S. relations have always been moving forward over the past 4 decades and have witnessed historic achievements, which have also brought enormous benefits to both countries and peoples. China-U.S. relationship has become one of the most important, the most dynamic, and the most potential bilateral relationships in the world.
Xi pointed out that he remembered when he first visited the United States in 1985, the bilateral trade volume stood only at $7.7 billion and the personnel exchanges were about 10,000 person-times. In 2011, bilateral trade volume exceeded $440 billion and the personnel exchanges surpassed three million person-times.
Xi stressed that the 40-year history proves that the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations is vital to both countries as well as to the peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and even the world. During President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States in January 2011, the two heads of state reached a consensus on building a win-win cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. This fully embodies the characteristics and requirements of China-U.S. relations in the new era, that is, developing a win-win, mutually beneficial and cooperative partnership in the principle of mutual respect.
On China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation, Xi pointed out that the nature of China-U.S. economic and trade relations is to seek mutual benefit and win-win results. Since the establishment of China-U.S. diplomatic relations, bilateral trade volume has increased by over 180 times. U.S. exports to China witnessed a cumulative increase of 468% in the past decade, creating more than 3,000,000 jobs for the United States. The exports of 47 states out of the 50 states in the U.S. witnessed 3-digit or even 4-digit growth. Chinese products saved American consumers over $600 billion. According to the Survey of AmCham China in 2011, 85% of the U.S.-funded companies in China experienced revenue growth and 41% of the U.S.-funded companies in China saw their margin growth in China higher than their global average. The U.S. investment in China boosted the strong growth of U.S. exports to China, accelerated the U.S. industrial upgrading, and promoted economic development in the United States.
Xi said that as economic globalization moves deeper, China-U.S. economic and trade relations are highly interdependent. Such relationship could not sustain or grow rapidly if it is not built on the basis of mutual benefit and win-win results, or could not bring great benefits to the United States. The vast majority of the Americans who understand the actual situation of China-U.S. economic and trade relations, including the American business community, have a very clear understanding of such fact.
Xi stressed that in the course of economic and trade exchanges, it is inevitable that the two countries may experience some frictions and disagreements. What's important is that the two sides properly handle the differences on an equal footing and through coordination featuring mutual benefit, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation and do not allow the frictions and differences to interfere in the overall development of China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation.
Xi said that China has taken and will continue to take positive measures to address the reasonable concerns of the United States on the protection of intellectual property rights and trade imbalance. China will continue to promote the reform of the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism and will continue to provide investors in China with a fair, standardized and transparent investment environment. Meanwhile, he expressed the hope that the U.S. side could also take substantive steps as soon as possible in areas such as relaxing the control over the exports of high-tech products to China and providing a fair competition environment for Chinese enterprises to invest in the United States.
On China-U.S. relations in the Asia-Pacific, Xi Jinping said that the Asia-Pacific is the region where the two countries have the most concentrated common interests. In recent years, China and the United States maintained close coordination within the frameworks of the APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum, strengthened communication and cooperation on regional economic integration, anti-terrorism, anti-proliferation, combating transnational crimes, disaster prevention and mitigation, poverty reduction and regional hot-spot issues, which strongly safeguarded and promoted the peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.
Xi stressed that the countries in the Asia-Pacific are most concerned of retaining economic prosperity and maintaining the momentum of economic growth and regional cooperation. In a time when people want stability and want development, artificially highlighting military security agenda, and deliberately strengthening military deployment and consolidating military alliance might not what is wanted by the vast majority of countries in the region.
Xi pointed out that the breadth of the Pacific has enough space for the two big countries. China welcomes the United States to play a constructive role in regional peace, stability, and prosperity; in the meantime China hopes that the United States could fully respect and take care of major interests and reasonable concerns of the Asia-Pacific countries.
With regard to bilateral cooperation on international, regional and global issues, Xi said that China and the United States carried out effective coordination and cooperation in promoting the settlement of major international and regional issues and jointly coping with global challenges, enriched the connotations of bilateral relations, consolidated and expanded the strategic foundation of China-U.S. relations. Both sides helped each other, joined hands with other countries to cope with the international financial crisis, and promoted world economic recovery; coordinated climate change conferences in Copenhagen, Cancun, and Durban and reached consensus; pushed forward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the Six-Party Talks; opposed the development and possession of nuclear weapons by any country in the Middle East; and safeguarded regional peace and security. The two countries also conducted effective communication on the issues of Afghanistan, South Asia, Sudan, the Middle East and other hot-spot issues.
Xi stressed that the negative impacts of the international financial crisis and the European debt crisis are still spreading, regional hot-spot issues keep emerging, and non-traditional security threats are intertwined with traditional security threats. Under the new situation, China and the United States in particular should strengthen communication, coordination and cooperation and jointly play a constructive and responsible role for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting world peace, stability and development.
With respect to the significance of local and people-to-people exchanges to China-U.S. relations, Xi said that mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples is the solid foundation and an inexhaustible motive force for the development of China-U.S. relations. In 1985 when Xi worked in Hebei Province, he visited the State of Iowa and inspected maize cultivation and processing in the region. He also lived in the homes of local residents for a few days. Advanced technology of the United States and warm hospitality, diligence and kindness of the American people left him with deep impression. He personally felt the importance of strengthening exchanges between the two peoples. The visit also enhanced his understanding of China-U.S. relations.
Xi pointed out that China and the United States are both great countries and the two peoples have a lot of goodwill to and interest in each other. They desire exchanges and mutual learning and want to deepen friendship and seek common development. The two countries have no reason to be unfriendly and uncooperative. He expressed the belief that China-U.S. relations, which are supported by 1.6 billion people, will bring more peace, prosperity and development to the world.