Chinese and US lawmakers agreed in Washington Wednesday to
further consolidate and improve the regular exchange mechanism
between the parliaments of the two countries.
During the dialogue, the eighth to date, lawmakers also
exchanged views on a range of issues, such as Sino-US relations,
the Taiwan issue, bilateral economic and trade ties, parliamentary
exchanges, international and regional situations, and security and
defense.
The dialogue, the result of an inter-parliamentary exchange
mechanism set up between China's National People's Congress (NPC)
and the US House of Representatives in 1999, was cosponsored by
Jiang Enzhu, chairman of the NPC's Foreign Affairs Committee and
chairman of the China-US Inter-parliamentary Exchange Group, and
Donald Manzullo, chairman of the US House Small Business Committee
and chairman of the US-China Inter-parliamentary Exchange
Group.
At the request of the US, the Chinese side briefed the US side
on China's Eleventh Five Year Plan, the strategy for peaceful
development, and policies on energy, national defense, ethnics
groups and religion.
The two sides hailed the momentum in the development of China-US
relations in recent years, and agreed that the two countries have
had close contacts and conducted fruitful cooperation at different
levels and in various fields.
These contacts and cooperation, they said, not only conformed to
the common interests of the two nations, but were also conducive to
peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region and the
world as a whole.
The Chinese side stressed that the forthcoming visit to the US
by President Hu Jintao was of the utmost importance in bilateral
relations and played a significant role in promoting the stable and
continuous development of bilateral relations. They expressed the
hope that the two sides would make concerted efforts to make the
visit a success.
The US side said the US attached great importance to the visit
and was willing to make efforts to ensure its success.
The two sides reviewed the achievements of the parliamentary
exchange mechanism, and agreed that parliamentary exchanges
constituted an important part of China-US relations.
They also agreed that as an effective platform for enhancing
mutual understanding, expanding consensus and deepening mutual
trust, the mechanism should be maintained.
At a meeting with the Chinese delegation on Wednesday, Dennis
Hastert, speaker of the US House of Representatives, said the US
and China shared wide-ranging common interests, and bilateral
cooperation in various fields had brought substantial benefits to
the peoples of the two countries.
Economic and trade relations had become a bond linking the two
peoples, therefore, problems and differences emerging in these
relations should be solved through dialogue and consultation, he
said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 30, 2006)
