Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States will "deepen people-to-people friendship, expand cooperation and provide new impetus to the new model of major country relationship between China and the US", wrote Yang Jiechi, China's state councillor and a former ambassador of China to the US, in an opinion article published?in the Seattle Times.

In the article published on Sunday, Yang wrote: "Admittedly, China and the US also have different views on some issues and there are sensitive issues in our bilateral relations. However, they are outweighed by our common interests and the potential of cooperation. Dialogue and cooperation is the prevailing trend."

"There are broad areas where we should and can work with each other," he wrote. "Closer China-US cooperation would deliver great benefits to people in both countries and beyond. This is our historical mission and what the international community expects of us."

Yang wrote that "subnational cooperation is a driver of China-US relations", "business cooperation is the bedrock of China-US relations" and "people-to-people exchange is a propeller of China-US relations."

On subnational cooperation, he noted that China and the US have 43 pairs of sister provinces and states and 200 pairs of sister cities, with multiple platforms and extensive networks for close interactions and "Washington state and Seattle are at the forefront of such cooperation". Washington will be President Xi's first stop when he starts his visit to the US on Tuesday.

On trade between the US and China, Yang wrote that in 2014 it exceeded $550 billion and mutual investment exceeded $120 billion, and he put forth other numbers on the trade relationship:

"By June 2015, Chinese companies had directly invested $77.5 billion in 1,501 nonfinancial projects in the U.S. Estimates show that by 2020, Chinese investment in the U.S. will reach $100 billion to $200 billion, adding up to 400,000 local jobs. As China upgrades its economy and the U.S. boosts economic recovery, the future of our business cooperation is ever more bright''.

On people-to-people exchanges, Yang wrote that there is a flight between China and the US every 17 minutes, and some 4.3 million people traveled across the Pacific last year.

"Educational exchange is also thriving. By 2014, 490,000 young Chinese had studied in the US, and more than 100,000 young Americans in China. Seventy-five Chinese universities hosted 12,000 American scholars. More than 30 percent of the international students in Washington state are Chinese," he wrote.

"Both the Chinese and the Americans believe that actions speak louder than words," Yang concluded. "With joint actions, we will write a new chapter in China-U. S. friendship and cooperation."