China, US vow to end old rivalries in high-level talks

Top US and Chinese officials meet in Beijing to discuss the cooperation between the world’s two biggest economies. Chinese President Xi Jinping says confrontation with the United States would be a ‘disaster’ China and the United States met for high-level talks yesterday, with Chinese President Xi Jinping urging the world’s two biggest economies to break old patterns of confrontation.

Given their different histories and cultures “it is natural that China and the U.S. may have different views and even frictions on certain issues,” Xi told the opening of the two-day annual talks in Beijing.

“This is what makes communication and cooperation even more necessary,” he urged, speaking in the same imposing compound where then-U.S. President Richard Nixon met Mao Zedong on his groundbreaking visit to China in 1972. The sixth Strategic and Economic Dialogue comes as tensions have risen in recent months, racked by maritime disputes between China and its neighbors as well as U.S. fears over cybersecurity and Chinese hacking.

“Our interests are more than ever interconnected,” Xi insisted, saying the two “stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”

“If we are in confrontation it will surely spell disaster for both countries and for the world,” he said, adding the Pacific powers needed to “break the old pattern of inevitable confrontation.”

In a statement sent to the opening of the meetings, U.S. President Barack Obama agreed, saying: “The United States and China will not always see eye-to-eye on every issue.” That was “why we need to build our relationship around common challenges, mutual...