Sino-US ties in 'right direction'

China Thursday reasserted continuing efforts to build a "new model of major-country relationships" after concluding a two-day strategic dialogue between China and the US which reached consensus on more than 90 major points.

Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang said Thursday afternoon at a joint-conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew that the "Sino-US relationship is sailing toward the right direction," after the Sixth China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue ended Thursday in Beijing.

"We have achieved satisfactory results through this dialogue with mutual agreement on more than 90 key items," noted Wang at the press conference.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also invited US President Obama to visit Beijing in November.

"I am happy to keep close contact with him [Obama] through letters and conversation over major issues that concern both nations," Xi said Thursday.

The two-day dialogue, which gathered top officials from both countries, covered a wide range of topics, including North Korea's nuclear program, reforms to the yuan exchange rate mechanism and China's territorial disputes.

Consensus over economic cooperation is among the key achievements in the latest bilateral talks, as both Beijing and Washington agreed to conclude the first phase of the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) talks within the year and start substantive negotiations on the negative list in early 2015.

"The BIT talks consist of two phases; the first is the fine print and the other is the negative list. We are going to start the second phase [next year]," Chinese Assistant Commerce Minister Zhang Xiangchen was reported as saying on Wednesday at a press briefing by the Xinhua News Agency.

A negative list specifies business activities which are either entirely closed or conditionally open to foreign investment.

China also agreed to increase currency flexibility to reflect economic fundamentals, and pledged continuing efforts to press ahead with foreign exchange rate reform, interest rate reform, and reduce currency intervention when the situation allows, Reuters reported.

Opening this year's dialogue on Wednesday, President Xi warned of disastrous consequences if China and the US failed to contain their conflicts.

"The talks can serve as a sign that the Sino-US relationship has returned to a healthy situation, following a series of disputes over the yuan and cyber security, which has overshadowed Sino-US ties in the first half of this year," Fu Mengzi, deputy dean at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.

With repeated mentions of a "new model of major-country relationships" by Chinese officials, Fu believed both nations have agreed on wide-ranging cooperation, from the economy, national security to the military.

Competition will still persist, but Fu believed that mutual interest over Asia-Pacific issues will bring the two nations together.

Tao Wenzhao, a research fellow on American studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times he believed China and the US will continue to disagree on issues such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent decision to partially allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense.

Earlier in May, Washington indicted five Chinese military officers for hacking into US companies and triggered bilateral disputes.

Speaking at the concluding press conference Thursday, Kerry warned "instances of cyber theft have harmed our business and threatened our nation's competitiveness."

"Don't expect one dialogue can solve all the problems," noted Tao, "The conflicts will still exist, but we will need to manage it well with continuing exchanges."

Kerry and Lew agreed to take steps to realize the agreements over economic, military and cultural exchanges, and promised not to contain China's thriving economy, according to the foreign ministry website.