Consensus on 'What to do' & 'What not to do'
- By Shen Dingli
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 19, 2015
At the latest summit, the Chinese side said that both online theft of commercial secrets and hacker attacks on government websites are criminal acts that should be cracked down according to law and relevant international conventions. Both sides made it clear that no country is allowed to commit, or intentionally support, theft of intellectual property including commercial secrets or other confidential commerce information. The two countries agreed to upgrade the Cyber Security Work Group set up two years ago to a high-level dialogue mechanism for cracking down on cyber crimes and work together to formulate, and promote, nation behavior guidelines for the international community cyberspace. Both sides have made great efforts to better balance the need to allow each country's IT technologies and products flowing into each other country and the need to protect each side's national security.
China and the US made a series of breakthroughs at the summit on "what not to do." As they are of great importance to national interests, these breakthroughs could not be achieved at the staff level and had to be handled by the top leaders. Xi and Obama adopted a cooperative attitude on the above-mentioned issues based on the fundamental interests of the two nations as well as of the world at large. Having the overall interests in mind, the two presidents exercised mutual understanding and mutual accommodation in their talks, which helped remove a number of obstacles that had stood in the way of the development of bilateral relations. So long as the consensus reached in the latest summit can be effectively implemented, it can be predicted that the bilateral ties will meet with much fewer frictions.
On "what to do" for both countries, the two heads of state achieved even greater results, which included 49 cooperative projects. First of all, both sides reaffirmed the definition of their relationship. At the Sunnylands summit in June 2013, China raised the concept of "a new type of major power relations between China and the US" but the US did not accept it right away. Washington remained doubtful about it until it became gradually positive when Obama expressed "appreciation" at the St Petersburg talks in September 2013, "agreement" at The Hague nuclear security summit in March 2014 and "joint promotion" at the Zhongnanhai, Beijing meeting in November 2014 with Xi. Against the recent allegations by certain critics that the Sino-US relations have reached the "critical point," both sides agreed at the latest summit to continue the joint effort for establishing a new type of major power relations based on mutual respect and win-win cooperation.
With the establishment of a constructive framework for their bilateral relations, China and the US need to bring real benefits to their people through cooperation. At the latest summit, both countries agreed to restart talks for the conclusion of a bilateral investment agreement. This will help increase employment in both countries and promote common prosperity. The two countries made major policy commitment to respecting intellectual property and innovation. This will create a friendly environment for mutual investment and business cooperation. The previous "one hundred thousands plus ten thousands" plan of exchanging students will be upgraded to a three-year "fifty thousands plus fifty thousands" plan funded by China. And the student exchange will be extended to wider fields. China will buy more US-made long-haul commercial airliners while the US will invite China to help with its high-speed railway construction. Also, the two countries promised to cooperate to help Africa develop green energy sources. All these cooperative moves will bring immense benefits to both countries and the rest of the world.
It is hoped that these brilliant promises can be fulfilled. And it is also expected that new contradictions will keep emerging between the two countries as cooperation deepens. The US will try to maintain its status as the world's sole superpower while cooperating with China. And China will try to attain a deserved status while making greater contributions to the world with its growing strength. Competition and cooperation around these two "statuses" will go on and on. The question is how to make the competition and cooperation move in the right direction.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/shendingli.htm
This article was first published at Chinausfocus.com To see the original version please visit http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/consensus-at-summit-promotes-cooperation/
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