BEIJING, Nov. 4 -- The upcoming visit of US President George W. Bush to Beijing is set to strengthen mutual trust between the two powers, former US Ambassador to China J. Stapleton Roy said yesterday.

 

J. Stapleton Roy: No strategic mistrust

    President Bush is scheduled to visit China for the third time since taking office in 2001 and hold summit talks with President Hu Jintao late this month. Roy stressed that to develop sound US-China relations requires co-operation between the two countries at the highest-level.

    "The meeting between President Hu and President Bush is so important because if both leaders have no strategic mistrust, then you can deal with problems and strategic mistrust of both countries more effectively," he said.

    "And if top leaders have strategic mistrust about each other, then our relations will be very difficult to manage."

    Roy, who was US ambassador to China between 1991 and 1995, added that the Bush-Hu meeting will help ease growing concern in both China and the United States about each other, and be an important factor for stability in East Asia.

    The former envoy made the remarks on the sidelines of a two-day International Conference on East-Asia Co-operation and Sino-US Relations, which opened yesterday.

    Over 20 experts and researchers on international studies from China and the United States attended the event co-organized by the China National Association for International Studies and China Policy Programme of George Washington University.

    It is the first time for Chinese and US researchers to discuss together bilateral relations in the context of regional co-operation in East Asia, a sign of increasing and overlapping interests of the two nations in this region.

    Professor David Shambaugh, a renowned China expert, predicted that the two leaders will discuss some specific issues including intellectual property rights, the US trade deficit with China and the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula. Enditem

(Source: China Daily)