Bad global economy and climate change could create a turning point for U.S.-China relations as the two countries have to unite against the two "enemies" for the welfare of themselves and the world as well, a U.S. expert has said.

"It could be a turning point. Bad global economies and climate change are the enemies which China and the U.S. need to confront together," Orville Schell, director of Asia Society Center on U.S.-China relations, told Xinhua on the sideline of the annual conference of Asia Society in Houston Thursday.

"I think because of what Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Richard Nixon did in 1972, the world was safer. And I also believe if the U.S. and China can find a way to cooperate now on the global economy and climate change, the world will be much safer in ten years," he said.

The expert described the Sino-U.S. relationship as the "most important and dynamic relations for both the U.S. and China."

The U.S. and China are each other's second largest trading partner. Statistics show that despite the global economic slump, China-U.S. bilateral trade volume rose by 11.6 percent in the first eleven months of 2008 to 307.8 billion U.S. dollars.

In Schell's view, the Bush administration had managed the U.S.-China relations quite well but brought no major changes.

The Obama administration, as signals emerging from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to China indicate, wants to change the fundamental nature of the bilateral ties by finding area of cooperation, he said.

"I was pleased that she (Hillary Clinton) went to explore areas for new cooperation, instead of simply talking about old issues that sometimes are quite controversial," he said. "I think she has decided that she wants to find a way to cooperate so the issues that divide us will be easier to deal with."

For the U.S., the economy is the most important short term problem and climate change is the overriding long-term one, on which Secretary Clinton is seeking cooperation with China, according to Schell.

"I think we are in quite serious trouble, particularly in the economic world. In climate change, we are in far more serious trouble than most people care to know," he said.

For future U.S.-China relations, Schell said questions of trade, of buying U.S. debt, and trade protectionism are all very important, and the U.S. Congress sometimes can be very tough on those issues.

But the new U.S. administration is moving in the right direction, he said, voicing optimism that the new U.S. government will be wise enough to make the right decision in the future.

"As Secretary Clinton said in her trip, we need to find areas to cooperate and collaborate and we are going to do it quickly. And these (economy and climate change) are the two areas we are going to focus on."

As dialogue between the U.S. and China is raised to a higher level, Schell said there will be two discussions between the sides, one being the economic discussion, the other being the strategic discussion on energy, climate change, nuclear proliferation, among others.

"China and the U.S. are partners, and we have to be partners," said Schell. "Climate change is a critical issue in which we are equally involved, we have equal responsibility, we have equal interest, we have equal amounts to lose, we have equal amounts to gain."

(Xinhua News Agency March 2, 2009)