BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- A lucrative package of trade and two-way investment worth 253.5 billion U.S. dollars reached during U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China is a clear signal for further cooperation between the two countries, a Chinese expert said.
Zhao Lei, a professor of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhuanet.
Zhao said the deals, covering a wide range of areas, set a new record not only in China-U.S. trade relations, but also in world trade history.
More importantly, such a record-breaking package, to a great degree, defuses U.S. doubts , such as the continuity in China’s policy of opening up and other issues, Zhao said.
The deals will boost pragmatic cooperation under the framework of the “Belt and Road” Initiative (B&R), Zhao said.
On November 9, China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced that the Silk Road Fund and the U.S. manufacturing giant General Electric had established a joint investment platform specialized in infrastructure projects in the fields of power grid, new energy, and oil and gas, in countries and regions along the Belt and Road.
And “B&R” construction will embrace more countries and regions while the foundation for cooperation between the two countries will be more solid, Zhao added.
While economic and trade cooperation is the stabilizer and ballast of Sino-U.S. relations, added Zhao, cultural exchanges are also important as lubricants.
During his talks with Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping said people-to-people exchanges are a long-term cause and crucial to the development of China-U.S. relations.
The state visit highlighted the social foundation for people-to-people exchanges, Zhao said, adding it is a continuity of the cultural exchanges between the two sides carried out by the previous U.S. governments.
Zhao said Trump’s granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, serves as a good example of expanded bilateral cultural exchange as the little girl works so hard and speaks Chinese so well.
Apart from cultural exchanges, Zhao also stressed more deep-going cooperation in high-tech areas such as energy, aviation, artificial intelligence, biological pharmacy.
