Upcoming Xi-Obama summit 'timely, much needed': Brzezinski

The upcoming summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barack Obama is "very timely" and "very much needed," said former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"The American-Chinese relationship is the most important bilateral relationship of the world," said Brzezinski in a phone interview with Xinhua on Wednesday.

"Global economic stability and global security very much depend on the healthy, friendly, cooperative and mutually accommodating relationship between America and China," he said.

Brzezinski's comment came ahead of the summit between Xi and Obama on June 7-8 in California's Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Estate. It will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Xi took office in March.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang on Tuesday highlighted the significance of the summit, saying that it will bolster the long-term, sound and steady development of China-US relations, and promote peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the world.

Brzezinski said he hoped that the two leaders can take advantage of the meeting to jointly issue a communique "which outlines how the American-Chinese partnership should evolve, what should be its shared objectives, how it intends to manage the unavoidable differences that are bound to arise in a complex and comprehensive relationship."

He called on both leaders to use the summit to underscore the "joint commitment" in fostering a "more wide ranging" U.S.-China partnership, and their "mutual determination" to deal "constructively" with the challenges in their relations.

Citing his observation of the current status of this vital bilateral ties, Brzezinski pointed out that there has been some "deterioration in mutual confidence and in mutual understanding."

"A brief look at the American mass media or at the Chinese mass media reveals that both sides incline to be quite critical of the other," he noted.

Nonetheless, Brzezinski urged both countries' leaders to reach a consensus that a healthy American-Chinese partnership is in the joint interest "not only of both countries but of the whole world."

"The basic facts remain that America and China are locked into the partnership on which their respective well-being very much depends," he pointed out.

"If that partnership is not maintained, both countries will suffer. And ability of the world to engage in more wide ranging cooperation will dramatically diminish," Brzezinski said.

"So the two leaders have a great historical responsibility on their hands," he stressed, calling on both of them to commit their countries to a "long-term, historically vital partnership."

Brzezinski served as national security advisor in the Carter administration and was deeply involved in the normalization of relations between China and the United States. He is currently the counselor and trustee of the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).