Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the U.S. Department of State in Washington D.C. Sept. 28, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

by Xinhua writer Liu Chen

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The first Social and People-to-People Dialogue between China and the United States held in the U.S. capital has helped further promote sound and stable bilateral relations.

The one-day event, under the theme of "Live together for the next 50 years based on mutual understanding," was co-chaired by visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson here on Thursday.

The meeting is one of the four high-level dialogues established during the Mar-a-Lago meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida in April.

During the dialogue and its sideline events earlier this week in Washington and New York, the two sides had in-depth exchanges of views on bilateral exchanges and cooperation in areas of culture, education, health and innovation.

Universities and think tanks of the two countries have been encouraged to carry out strategic and forward-looking research and jointly cultivate high-quality talents so as to contribute more to the development of China-U.S. relations.

The strengthening of innovative cooperation, which is one of the most dynamic and highlighted components of bilateral people-to-people exchanges, has also been proposed as it serves the fundamental interests of the two countries, and would lead the world's innovation trend and promote global economic growth.

Enhancing communication between youth of the two countries has been among the highlights of the four-day series of activities. A friendship basketball game between Chinese and U.S. middle school boys took place in New York on Monday, with the players getting a surprise visit during the warm-up by Vice Premier Liu and former NBA star Yao Ming.

China and the United States are respectively the world's largest developing country and the largest developed country, and their relationship exceeds the bilateral scope and has global significance.

People-to-people exchanges, an area where the two countries enjoy the most consensus, have always played a unique and important role in building strong China-U.S. ties.

Over the past seven years, the China-U.S. high-level cultural exchanges mechanism has achieved fruitful results, creating warmer, more resilient, and more dynamic China-U.S. ties.

As of May last year, there were some 353,000 Chinese students studying in the United States, accounting for 34 percent of the total number of international students in the country, according to a report published by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May 2016.

Meanwhile, the Chinese language has become the second most commonly spoken non-English language, only after Spanish, in the United States.

Looking ahead, the two sides should seek common ground, continue to push forward people-to-people exchanges and promote mutual understanding and friendship, so as to further consolidate the foundation of the development of bilateral relations.