5th Round of China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue

Backgrounder: China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue

    by Xinhua writers Wu Qiong and Xiong Zhengyan

    BEIJING, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- The fifth round of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) between China and the United States was fruitfully concluded on Friday, however, the future of the mechanism was still up in the air.

    The swansong trip of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson secured 40 agreements with China, including specific breakthroughs in critical sectors like finance, on top of nearly 150 previous agreements over the past two years, making a strong finish to all talks, but leaving a question mark over the future.

    No matter what's ahead for this two-year-old dialogue, both sides think highly of the role of the mechanism in promoting the common interest of both countries.

    The U.S. side said, on looking back at five rounds of talks, that cooperation with the Chinese side was the foundation of a sustainable and healthy bilateral relation, which was of vital importance to the future development of both countries and of the world economy.

    The Chinese side said the mechanism was an important platform to boost strategic mutual trust and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, and also a cornerstone in building robust and sustained Sino-U.S. relations.

    Both also agreed the mechanism had become an effective framework to resolve disputes and react to challenges in the rapidly growing bilateral trade and investment, which could promote the fundamental interests of people of the two countries.

    At a time when Paulson, who initiated the talks, was about to leave office with the Bush administration, we are all wondering whether the mechanism would be kept to have high-level delegations from the two countries to meet every six months for discussions on economic issues.

    It's true that views in the United States are split on the positive function of the SED mechanism. Some U.S. critics had criticized that the mechanism had failed to yield the major success Paulson had expected when the dialogue began in 2006. President-elect Barack Obama has not said whether he would continue the current format for discussions.

    There are also concerns in China that the new administration may keep the SED mechanism, but use it to exert more pressure on China.

    But we would argue that the essence of dialogue must be kept in place to get the world's largest and the world's fastest growing economy closer together to discuss economic issues.