Exchanges expected to lift China-US ties

Once the door of cooperation at the locality level and peoples' friendship is opened, no force can shut it down, Beijing's top envoy in Washington said at a recent event, highlighting the importance of bilateral exchanges.

Nine out of 10 US states have had Chinese sister cities or provinces forming a network that has played an important role, like capillaries and cells, in propelling the development of US-China relations, Xie Feng, Chinese ambassador to the US, said at the 5th China-US Sister Cities Conference via video link.

The gathering and its sideline events held at East China's Suzhou city last week were attended by 200 representatives from at least 10 Chinese provinces and cities, and nearly 20 county supervisors and city mayors from 22 US states.

Under the theme "Build Green Cities for the People", participants had in-depth exchanges of views, shared experiences, explored opportunities for cooperation and achieved good results, according to Wang Wenbin, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The conference reflects the keen interest and strong dynamism in locality-level and people-to-people exchanges, and shows that cooperation is essential from both countries, Wang said at a briefing in Beijing on Monday.

China will continue to support and encourage locality-level and people-to-people exchanges, Wang said. "We also hope that the US will work with us to create favorable conditions and the atmosphere "for the exchanges and cooperation, Wang said.

The event is part of an increasing number of exchanges between China and the US in recent months, following the visits to China by US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, and a reciprocal trip to Washington by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last month.

In his speech, Xie noted that since 1979, China and the US have established 284 pairs of sister provinces/states and cities, which have become an important platform for deepening bilateral exchanges and cooperation and promoting mutual understanding and affinity between the two nations.

To see how state-province level exchanges matter, Xie said China is the largest export market for four US states and the top three export market for 38 states.

He said that currently the China-US relationship has seen some positive signs of stabilizing, but there are still "serious difficulties" and "grave challenges" in the bilateral ties.

Sense of responsibility

"It is important to act with a sense of responsibility for history, for the people and for the world, and strive to stabilize and improve China-US relations in accordance with the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation," the ambassador said.

The envoy called for further tapping the potential of complementarity at the locality level, strengthening exchanges and cooperation between sister cities, and building more bridges for goodwill between China and the United States.

The efforts will lay a solid foundation and inject impetus into the efforts to bring China-US ties back to the track of sound, stable and sustainable development, he added.

To enhance martial arts exchanges, more than 500 martial arts athletes and 900 international delegates from about 75 countries and regions are expected to gather in Fort Worth, Texas, next week, to compete in the 16th World Wushu Championships. The encounter will mark the return of the event to the US after almost 30 years.

The event is scheduled for Nov 16-20, said Anthony Goh, chairman of the organizing committee, at a virtual news briefing on Monday.

Hosted by the International Wushu Federation, or IWUF, and organized by the United States of America Wushu Kungfu Federation, the championships were last held in Baltimore in 1995.

The IWUF was established in 1990 and has held the biennial event in various countries around the world since it was first held in Beijing in 1991. Goh said there are 158 member countries/regions in the federation, and about half will make it to this year's championships after the pandemic interrupted the 2021 championships.

"The scale of this year's competition is not the largest nor the smallest. The biggest challenges we have faced are the difficulties of obtaining visas to the US. In addition, due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the recent violence in the Mideast, some are unable to leave their countries," Goh said.

May Zhou in Houston contributed to this story.