Scholars discuss bilateral ties reports

How to address issues involving DPRK among think tank points of discussion

One area that stood out as Chinese and American think tank scholars discussed their findings on US-China relations was the Korean Peninsula.

China's role in issues concerning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was one of the most heated topics.

"China and the US could do a lot more to collaborate on the issue of North Korea. The key is how to measure, how to define China's cooperation," said Zhu Feng, professor of International Relations at Nanjing University.

"It's not easy for China to cut off all the trade relations with the DPRK overnight," Zhu said, who added that trade with DPRK "is China's leverage".

For the past year, experts from think tanks in the US and China have been working on parallel reports on US-China relations, a project initially proposed in May, 2016, by Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress.

Several teams from both sides developed analyses and policy recommendations on critical areas that shape the relationship: military relations, the Asia-Pacific region, economic relations, global governance and domestic politics.

The US side's report, entitled Joint US-China Think Tank Project on the Future of US-China Relations: An American Perspective, was released in Washington on Thursday.

The Chinese side's report, China-US Relations: Exploring a New Pathway to a Win-win Partnership, was issued in May 2017.

"Both sets of papers really come to the same endpoint: This is an enormously important relationship. How America and China will work together in the next 20, 30, 50 years will fundamentally shape the well being of the human community. We have to figure out how we're going to work together," said John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS).

Zhu, the Nanjing University professor, said that he has a lot of hope for the second meeting between US President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping, and the two sides could increase cooperation.

The military relationship between China and the US has been viewed as generally stable by the two sides.

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, said that both sets of papers insist on a peaceful resolution of disputes to avoid military conflict.

"Both call for more candid strategic dialogue on the major issues in the Asia-Pacific region," she said.

David Finkelstein, vice-president at the Center for Naval Analyses and director of its China Studies Division, said the US-China military-to-military relationship is more stable than it has been in decades.

Finkelstein wrote that there has never been more high-level contact, dialogue and positive operational interaction between the two militaries than there is today.

Moreover, defense ties are more resilient than in the past. Over the past few years, the relationship has been able to absorb high amounts of stress without fracturing, as was typically the case for many years.

Zhang Tuosheng, director of research and a senior fellow at the China Foundation for International Strategic Studies, said that there is much consensus and similar observations in the two reports.

"Both sides believe the mutual military relations are very complicated relations, with both cooperation and competition," Zhang said.

"Both sides agree that US-China commercial relations have been largely beneficial to both sides, despite the large trade deficit bilaterally. That (is how) we judge whether the relationship is beneficial or not," said Scott Kennedy, deputy director of Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS.

leshuodong@chinadailyusa.com