Carter, Cui stress importance of Sino-US relations

Former US president Jimmy Carter and Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai called for a harmonious relationship between the two countries for the greater good of the international community.

Carter, speaking last week in Atlanta at the Ruby Gala, which celebrated 40 years of US-China relations, said that the relationship is “too important to be destroyed or set back by hatred or misunderstanding between the two countries”.

“The most important bilateral relationship in the world today is the one between the United States and China,” he said.

The gala was hosted by the National Association of Chinese Americans with more than 300 people from China and the US attending.

The two countries normalized diplomatic relations on Jan 1, 1979, following an agreement that Carter and then vice-premier Deng Xiaoping announced on Dec 15, 1978.

Carter and Cui both spoke at a three-day symposium at the Carter Center marking the anniversary.

“Since 1979, Asia has known nothing but peace, I think a large part of that was because the good relationship and mutual trust between the people of China and the people of the United States,’’ Carter said.

“... We have some difficulties, and I have to say that the difficulties Deng Xiaoping and I faced were much greater than the trade disputes and so forth that exist today. But we have goodwill on both sides.”

Cui commented on Friday that while commemorating the 40th anniversary, “we cannot but notice some irrational doubts and myths about our relations’’.

He debunked myths such as claims that the US policy toward China in the last 40 years has failed because China hasn’t copied the US model in its political and economic systems; or that China has been taking advantage of the US. The US GDP soared from $2.63 trillion 40 years ago to $19.36 trillion in 2017, compared with China’s same year GDP of $12.2 trillion.

“It means that the US economy has grown over the years by a greater increment than the total annual GDP of China. There is no evidence that the US is on the losing side in its relations with China. What we have is nothing but a win-win scenario,” Cui said.

Cui said all of Asia and the world have benefited enormously from the ties — stability in the Asia-Pacific and the rebound from the 2008 international financial crisis, for example.

The world is undergoing tremendous changes, and it has never been so important for China and the US to work together, Cui said.

“Yet there is still pressing need for better mutual understanding between us, especially with regard to strategic intentions. And the consequences of miscalculations resulting from misunderstanding and misinterpretation could be much more serious than ever before,” Cui said.

He urged promoting cooperation between the two countries to expand common interests and avoid vicious rivalry.

“The best solution to problems is through even closer cooperation rather than disengagement or so-called decoupling”, he said.

Cui called for respecting each other’s independent choice of a social system and developing path and accommodating each other’s core interests and concerns.