Investment talks just first step

During a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province on Sept 4-5, President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama confirmed that the two countries have made significant progress in their talks on a bilateral investment treaty.

China and the United States are the world's two largest economies and a bilateral investment treaty would be of global significance.

After an agreement was reached on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement last year, Obama said that the US will not let countries such as China write the global trade rules and their making should be dominated by the US. And some US economists have hinted that China must first reach an agreement on an investment treaty with the US if it wants to join the TPP.