Meeting trumps doubters, lays road map

President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump recently held an important meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, which drew the attention of the international community for several reasons.

First, the two leaders reached a strategic consensus on the future of Sino-US relations based on the principle of no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation. Within this framework, they initiated a comprehensive dialogue mechanism that includes diplomatic and security dialogue, comprehensive economic dialogue, law enforcement and cyber security dialogue, and dialogue on social and people-to-people exchanges.

Before the meeting, there were uncertainties, even worries, about the direction the China-US relationship would take after Trump became US president and given the burning issues of the US' trade deficit, the yuan's exchange rate, and the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the South China Sea. The reality is, China and the US have plenty of converging interests, both bilateral and international, despite not seeing eye-to-eye on everything. The key to a steady and sound relationship is reaching a comprehensive strategic understanding of the overall direction of bilateral ties, instead of being obsessed with one single issue.