This is exactly why the two countries have made significant achievements in cooperation on a wide range of issues, including opening up financial markets to each other, allowing each other to invest, intellectual property right (IPR) protection, energy resources and the environment, climate change, product quality and food safety.

The US government made efforts to contain trade protectionism despite congressional pressure in order to prevent the politicization of trade issues, while the Chinese side has done more, including allowing the yuan to appreciate against the US dollar by 16 percent so far, steadily advancing the opening up of the financial sector, noticeably improving product quality, enhancing IPR protection with marked results and contributing to dealing with climate change and saving energy while reducing consumption of natural resources.

This time both sides have presented their lists of what they want to achieve in the talks. The US is expecting China to step up financial services industry reform, sign an agreement on protection of investment and IPR, improving product quality, ensuring food safety and so on; while the Chinese side hopes to strengthen strategic mutual confidence, increase macro-economic policy coordination and repel trade protectionism.

According to the spirit of mutual benefit and win-win results, people have reasons to believe the two sides will exercise certain flexibility while adhering to the principles and join hands in expanding the area of cooperation.

Some pessimists have concluded that the fourth round of the bilateral strategic economic dialogue will not be able to achieve substantial results. Because of the joint effect of its financial mess, flagging economy and election campaigns that are approaching the red-hot state, the US side will definitely increase pressure on China for strategic reasons; while the latter will find it hard to be more flexible in the extraordinary situation, as it is going all out in post-disaster (the Wenchuan earthquake) relief and preparations for the Olympic Games. And for this reason not only the upcoming dialogue will be the last before President Bush moves out of the White House but the strategic talks as a form of communication will automatically expire upon the end of his presidency.

Such worries are entirely unfounded, but politicians and strategists of reason will not subscribe to this kind of sentiment because, first of all, the original purpose of establishing the strategic economic dialogue was to examine bilateral economic and trade ties from a strategic vantage point and to develop their strategic relationship by means of economy and trade, with the emphasis on strategic and long-term development within the big picture instead of single-minded pursuits for "concrete gains". Second, it has been proven in practice that the strategic economic talks have played an irreplaceable role in keeping bilateral ties generally stable and in increasing strategic mutual confidence between the two sides. Third, reducing trade disputes and promoting common interests through dialogue is the trend in the era of globalization.

Finally, it does not matter who wins the US presidential election, as neither Barack Obama nor John McCain can afford not to focus their administration on "back to business" or "the economic battle". Neither of them can refuse to accept the benefits brought by the talks even if they dislike "strategic economic dialogue" label, because they would hate to bear the strategic impact of terminating the talks even more.

It is very interesting that the theme of the fourth round of the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue is "sustainable economic growth". This is currently the most urgent economic topic not just for China and the US but the world as whole as well. In a way the sustainability of the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue itself will indicate where "sustainable economic growth" is headed.

The author is a researcher with China Institute of Contemporary International Relations

(China Daily June 17, 2008)