Chinese President Xi Jinping Proposes New Model of Relationship with U.S

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SEATTLE – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for the world’s two largest economies to read each others strategic intentions correctly and manage their differences properly and effectively.

As part of his suggestions on building a new model of major-country relationship between China and the United States, Xi also proposed that the two countries boost win-win cooperation and extensively foster friendship between the two peoples.

“We want to see more understanding and trust, less estrangement and suspicion, in order to forestall misunderstanding and miscalculation,” the president told a welcoming banquet in Seattle, Washington State.

“There is no such things as the so-called Thucydides trap in the world. But should major countries time and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they might create such traps for themselves,” he said.

Xi arrived in the U.S. West Coast technology and aviation hub of Seattle on Tuesday morning, starting his first state visit to the country.

In his major policy speech delivered at the welcoming banquet hosted by the local government of Washington State and American friendly groups, the president also responded to concerns from the international community about China’s current economic situation and the development path it will pursue.

China will stay committed to steady economic growth, reform, opening-up, rule of law, anti-corruption endeavors and the path of peaceful development, Xi said.

“China’s economy will stay on a steady course with fairly fast growth … The key to China’s development lies in reform … China will never close its open door to the outside world,” the president pledged.

CHINA’S FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITY

Speaking at the welcoming banquet, Xi said that building a new model of major-country relationship, featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, is the priority of China’s foreign policy.

To read each others strategic intentions correctly, Xi said, the two countries should strictly base their judgment on facts, lest they become victims to hearsay, paranoid or self-imposed bias.

“We want to deepen mutual understanding with the U.S. on each others strategic orientation and development path,” Xi said.

To properly and effectively manage the differences between the two countries, the president proposed that the two sides respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, take a constructive approach to enhance understanding and expand consensus, and spare no effort to turn differences into areas of cooperation.

The president said the two countries should firmly advance win-win and wide-ranging cooperation, noting that cooperation requires mutual accommodation of each others interests and concerns and the quest of the greatest common ground of converging interests.

“If China and the United States cooperate well, they can become a bedrock of global stability and a booster of world peace,” he said. “Should they enter into conflict or confrontation, it would lead to disaster for both countries and the world at large.”

On people-to-people exchanges, Xi announced at the banquet that China supports the initiative of sending a total of 50,000 Chinese and American students to study in each other’s countries over the next three years, saying the two countries will launch a China-U.S. Year of Tourism in 2016.

“China on its part will create more favorable conditions for closer people-to-people exchanges,” he stressed.

By Liu Weibing – Xinhua