While expressing full agreement to Hu's call for stronger strategic mutual trust, Obama hailed the great development China had made in the past decades as remarkable achievements in human history. Obama emphasized that China's peaceful development benefited the whole world, including the United States. The United States, he added, welcomed a powerful, prosperous and successful China with a bigger role in international affairs. The U.S.-China cooperation serves the major interests of both sides and the two countries can cooperate based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. The United States is willing to work with China to enhance high-level contacts, build up strategic mutual trust and continue to tap the role of Strategic and Economic Dialogue mechanism. The United States is ready to seek solutions to outstanding issues through dialogue and cooperate with China to deal with multilateral issues in the 21st century.

The joint statement issued by the two countries pointed out that China and the United States are committed to working together to promote the common interests of both countries and to address the 21st century's opportunities and challenges. The two sides reaffirmed that the three Joint Communiqués issued by China and the United States laid the political foundation for the relationship. The two sides reaffirmed respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity. They further reaffirmed their commitment to the November 2009 China-U.S. Joint Statement. The United States in the joint statement reaffirmed it will adhere to the one-China policy and abide by the three China-U.S. Joint Communiqués.

The joint statement reflected the aspiration of both sides to improve mutual understanding, seek common ground while reserving differences and reinforce mutual trust at the strategic level, and outlined a package of exchange measures that would surely help shore up the strategic mutual trust between the two sides, Yang said.

III. Making New Progress in China-U.S. Economic And Trade Cooperation

Yang said the China-U.S. cooperative partnership could not be built up without the strong support of mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1979, bilateral trade and investment cooperation has developed very fast. Currently, China is the second biggest trade partner of the United States, and vice versa. The economic and trade cooperation with complementary advantages and mutual benefit has become an important cornerstone and promoting force for the development of bilateral ties. Yang said the shock of the global financial crisis still lingered and the world economic recovery still faced twists and turns. Both China and the United States are facing major tasks of developing economy, promoting employment and improving people's livelihood and are reforming economic structure. The two countries should make more efforts to contribute to full recovery of the world economy and the two economies by expanding and deepening trade cooperation.

Facing this situation, Hu said during his visit that China and the United States should continue coordination on their macro-economic policies, seek and expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and send a positive and strong message to the world market. China was ready to work with the U.S. side to carry out comprehensive economic cooperation, jointly ease trade imbalances, advocate free trade, oppose protectionism, boost the development of bilateral trade and economic ties, and push the Doha Round of global trade talks to achieve substantive results as soon as possible. Hu urged the U.S. side to relax its restrictions on hi-tech exports to China, offer an environment of fair competition to Chinese enterprises investing in the United States, and adopt active measures to recognize China's full market economy status.

President Obama, for his part, expressed his appreciation toward the significant progress in bilateral economic and trade cooperation, saying a robust economic and trade relationship between the two countries benefited both peoples. He said the U.S. side was willing to address China's important concerns in trade and economy, and make positive headway in this aspect. In their joint statement, the United States announced its commitment to consulting through the JCCT in a cooperative manner to work towards China's market economy status in an expeditious manner and advance the ongoing reform of the U.S. export control system.

The two countries agreed to establish a comprehensive and mutually beneficial economic partnership, strengthen exchanges and cooperation in various fields, and boost a strong, sustainable and balanced rise of the two economies and the world economy. The two sides inked more than 10 agreements, memoranda of understanding and letters of intent. Companies from the two countries also yielded rich cooperative fruits, which covered trade, investment, technology, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, energy, environment, high-speed rail, and smart grids. The large number of quality cooperation outcomes fully manifested that China-U.S. cooperation is developing in broader areas at a higher level and will also contribute to promoting economic development of the two countries and improving the livelihood of both peoples.

President Hu also took time out of his busy schedule to meet with Chinese and U.S. entrepreneurs together with President Obama. Hu spoke highly of the participating entrepreneurs' contributions to the development of their own countries' economy and the progress of China-U.S. relations. He encouraged them to seize the opportunities of the in-depth development of economic globalization, explore each other's market actively and push forward the mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation. He also visited the Chinese enterprises in the U.S. Midwest Enterprises Exhibition in Chicago and listened to the introduction, which was well received by Chinese and U.S. entrepreneurs.

IV. Boosting People-to-People Exchanges and Understanding

Yang said people-to-people exchanges were the important foundation and momentum for the development of ties between different countries, adding sound China-U.S. relations could not be guaranteed without the two peoples' mutual understanding and support.