The China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) is expected to continue in substance thanks to the strategic importance of the bilateral relationship and the success of the last one during the Bush Administration.
Prof. Jin Canrong of Beijing-based Renmin University, an expert on international studies， said recently in an interview with People's Daily Online that the agreements on cooperation on energy and the environment would not only give long-term impetus to the strategic relationship between the two countries, but also benefit the world.
"The issues of energy and environment are of low politics," said Jin. He thinks that such "safe" issues are easier to survive the power transition in the US which could happen in a few months. It also meets the public demand for the "visible, immediate results" of such a high-profile event.
At the fourth SED in June 17 and 18, China and the US reached an agreement on ten-year cooperation on energy security and environment.
Energy is also the field where competition between the two large energy consumers is inevitable. "The most crucial thing is to determine the priority of the two sides: competition or cooperation," said Jin. He described the agreement on energy cooperation as"happy news to both of the two countries and the entire world" because it indicates the optimism of both countries that they will expand on cooperation rather than competition on the energy issue.
Such cooperation will also help bring soaring oil prices down and lead to development of cleaner, renewable energies. On one hand, China's engagement into global energy investment will increase the supply and balance the demand-supply in the long run. On the other hand, both China and the US harbor mature recycling and waste-utilizing technologies. They can cooperate on that.
Another important success of this dialogue is the formal launch of talks on the bilateral investment protection treaty. Jin thinks the US market is a rather decent destination for investment from Chinese enterprises. But it is also a place where Chinese companies have come across too many setbacks. The talks bring hopes to businesses from the two countries which have the strong interest in investing in the markets of each other.
"Even if there is disagreement, the dialogue will continue; although in another form probably," said Jin. His confidence is built on the strategic nature of China-US relations. "Non-utilitarianism, strategic dialogues are always necessary to make sure that the no major strategic mistakes happen in such an important relationship," he said, believing that the China-US relations will largely decide whether the international relations are confrontation-oriented or cooperation-oriented.
Jin is optimistic about the future of the China-US relations. "The gap between China and the US has been narrowing much faster than anyone can imagine," he said. He believes that in the diversified landscape of US politics at least some policy makers have realized the fact that they have to accept China as a "stakeholder" in the international system, as Robert Zoelick, former US Deputy Secretary of State, first proposed in September 2005.
"The speed of China's growth means that within ten years from now, most of the so-called elites in the US will recognize that stakeholder concept," Jin noted.
By People's Daily Online
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