Meeting can add more ballast to stabilize relations: China Daily editorial

In yet another sign that relations between China and the United States are being stabilized, Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng is set to meet US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, just before senior finance officials and ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members officially meet on Saturday.

The new economic and financial forums launched in October by China's Ministry of Finance and central bank and the US Treasury are also to be convened.

In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post prior to her scheduled meeting with He, Yellen said that the United States was seeking "healthy economic competition" with China, not decoupling. "Decoupling our economies would be economically disastrous and run counter to our national interests," she wrote.

The two senior officials met previously in July, when Yellen visited Beijing to try to stabilize the worsening Sino-US relationship amid growing US restrictions on technology. That trip was part of a series of visits by high-level US officials, including those by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The discussions during those meetings have produced the current upturn in Sino-US relations. But it would be wrong to think that has come by easily with just a few choice words. Given that the past several years have seen the two sides lock horns with each other on trade and technology issues, the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issue, raising fears that they might be heading toward direct conflict, there have been a great deal of efforts needed to clear the air and calm the gathering tempest.

Fortunately, the top leaders of the two countries have kept their eyes on the bigger picture, and have accepted the need to jointly build "guardrails" to manage the differences between the two sides. Thus concrete actions have been taken to keep key channels of communication open that serve to avoid misunderstandings and reduce the risk of miscalculations.

The more pragmatic approach that the US has taken toward China may have also resulted from the fact that even as US policymakers have sought ways to cut ties with China, the two economies remain deeply intertwined.

As economists have noted, even though the US may be reallocating its sourcing and imports away from China, it remains connected with and dependent on China through the third parties.

As the Chinese leader has repeatedly stressed, the common interests of China and the US far outweigh their differences, and the two countries stand to gain from cooperation, while they will only lose from confrontation.

It is time for the two sides to turn what they have agreed upon into substantial results that can benefit both countries.