High-tech cooperation stimulates China-US relations

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) shakes hands with Ramond L. Conner, the CEO of Boeing during his visit to the Boeing Paine Field Assembly Plant in Seattle on September 23, 2015. [Photo/CRI]

During President Xi Jinping's recent visit to the United States, cooperation based on promoting and facilitating American high-tech exports to China has great potential to stimulate development of the bilateral relationship in accordance with the principles of "no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation."

During the past 36 years since the establishment of bilateral relations, cooperation between the two countries has undergone unprecedented development through mutual learning and exchanges.

With ongoing economic restructuring on both sides, more bilateral cooperation is definitely possible in such areas as the low-carbon economy, expanded production capacity and high technologies.

Theoretically, as a country rich in technological resources and production efficiency, the United States should have enjoyed a trade surplus in terms of high-tech products. However, this has not happened largely due to the severe restrictions on exports of high-tech products to China.

In recent years, the imports of high-tech products to China have grown by an average of 24 percent annually, yet high-tech imports from the United States to China have been shrinking in the overall import total, widening the trade deficit. The gap has grown 10-fold from 2002 to 2011, producing half of the entire deficit.

Easing restrictions on the exports of high-tech products is a win-win strategy beneficial both to the structural upgrading of Chinese economy and that of the United States. It will not only reduce the U.S. trade deficit, but also move low wage operations to developing countries, so that investors can save funds for future research and development programs able to ensure continued highly competitive position.