The Chinese government issued the white paper on the trade balance issue between China and the United States for the first time almost a decade ago, when the total value of Sino-US trade amounted to 42.84 billion US dollars (1996), and trade began to become a major issue affecting the bilateral ties. Ten years later, the total bilateral trade volume has reached 211.63 billion dollars (2005) at a time when US Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson came to Beijing as the head of a "luxury" US delegation for the first-ever Sino-US strategic economic dialogue slated for Thursday and Friday.

The economic might of the United States has not slightly been weakened just because of China's export growth to the U.S. On the contrary, facts prove that the U.S. has been profited much with China's economic growth, which has spurred the adjustment of an economic structure in the U.S.

Sino-US economic and trade relations over the past decade indicate two important changes. Firstly, bilateral ties have become closer still. What is manufacture and consumed, with even more clothing and more cars bought at this side of the Pacific will all have an impact on the other side of the ocean. Secondly, the growth of Sino-US trade not only benefits both nations themselves but contributes tremendously to the world economy. China and the U.S. are currently two of the leading engines to boost the growth of global economy, and the two economies have incurred over half of the GDP growth worldwide. And these two major changes have proven the necessity for the establishment of a strategic economic dialogue mechanism, and also the provision of adequate conditions essential in this regard.

Numerous problems prevailing in Sino-US ties have originated chiefly from the misconceptions and miscalculations and the establishment of a dialogue mechanism facilitates the cultivation of their mutual understanding, noted scholars both from China and the U.S, adding that bilateral relations should be observed carefully and meticulously in an in-depth, penetrating way during the strategic dialogue. Not long ago, Treasury Secretary Paulson acknowledged the U.S. should treat bilateral relationship with strategic a farsightedness "from generation to generation", and this view of his also conforms to the basic stance the Chinese side has persevered for a long time.

Some divergences and even frictions in bilateral economic and trade ties over recent years have been shifted from bilateral and partial problems to the issues with a growing global impact. At the time when the economic globalization is undergoing in-depth development, the economies of both China and the U.S. are having an increasingly greater impact on the global economy. Therefore, frictions will be effectively reduced and eliminated and a right way sorted out for both nations only by means of handling bilateral trade ties with a broad global vision. Global economy will benefit much greater from lesser frictions between China and the U.S. This is precisely where the significance of the incoming Sino-US strategic economic dialogue lies, and also the very reason that the dialogue has drawn wide-ranging global attention.

In view of the respective positions declared by both sides, the three major issues the American side cares most are the Renminbi (RMB) exchange rate, the intellectual property right protection and the opening of market, whereas the issues of utmost concern to the Chinese side are tendencies for trade protectionism and multiplying trade frictions apt to be politicalized in the U.S.. In fact, these issues are related most closely to the existing global political and economic set-ups, and the Sino-US trade issue, in term of its root cause, represents an issue of global trade imbalance, and so the solution to these issues require prolonged efforts of both sides and multilateral cooperation and coordination. Stephen S. Roach, the chief economist from Morgan Stanley, has reportedly noted that Sino-US ties are crucial for the sustained development of globalization and pose a test for national obligations as required by globalization, and will provide a vital experience and precedent for other nations around the world to work on how to cope with the escalating trade protectionism.

As economic and trade ties occupy an extremely vital status in Sino-US relations, the stepped-up strategic consultations on the bilateral economic and trade issue is not only conducive to the removal of frictions in the economic and trade sphere but lays a solid basis for the steady growth of the world economy, and it will also exert a positive, far-reaching impact on the stability and security of global economy.

By the People��s Daily Online