Beijing aims for good Trump visit

Vice Premier Liu Yandong (left center) stands with Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, the senior White House adviser, at the Chinese embassy in Washington on Wednesday. YIN BOGU / XINHUA

Beijing will work with the United States to ensure US President Donald Trump's first state visit to China is successful, visiting Vice-Premier Liu Yandong said in Washington on Wednesday.

Addressing a reception at the Chinese embassy to celebrate the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liu also said the two sides should conscientiously implement the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and Trump, expand mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas, respect each other's core interests and major concerns and manage and control differences so as to ensure the relationship makes steady headway.

The gathering of about 800 US and Chinese representatives on Thursday also marked the first China-US Social and People-to-People Dialogue, co-chaired by Liu and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the president, attended.

At the reception, Liu also met Susan Thornton, the acting US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. "Let's run the social and people-to-people dialogue well," Liu said.

Thornton agreed. "I think the vice-premier is very excited about the dialogue. She was so happy about it," Thornton told China Daily.

Speaking at the China-US Innovation-Driven Development Forum at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday morning in Washington, Liu said ramping up cooperation in science and technological innovation between China and the US is in line with the interests of both countries and beneficial to the rest of the world.

She said China welcomes talent from the United States and other countries to start businesses and engage in innovation in China.

The vice-premier recalled that the first China-US intergovernmental agreement signed in 1979 during China's reform architect Deng Xiao-ping's historic visit to the US was an agreement on cooperation in science and technology.

In the 38 years since China and the US forged formal diplomatic relations, the two sides have been engaged in technological innovation cooperation in various areas and on multiple levels, which has continuously produced landmark outcomes and yielded "fruitful results" in terms of grooming scientists.

"Strengthening cooperation in technological innovation between the world's largest developed and largest developing economies is a strategy and trend that conforms to the fundamental interests of both countries," Liu said at the opening of the Brookings forum.

Such cooperation also will be of tremendous significance in helping pull the global economy out of the recession and guiding the world's innovation and development, she said.

In an address to the Conference on China-US Collaborations on Medical and Health in Washington on Wednesday, Liu said improved healthcare is crucial to achieving "the Chinese Dream".

"The Chinese government has put the people's health in a strategic priority position. Our country is moving at a faster pace to build a healthy China. We spent less than 10 years building the world's largest basic health insurance network, which covers a 1.3 billion population," Liu said.

"In the future, we look forward to working with the international community and to contribute more 'Chinese wisdom' to the human health field," Liu said.