WASHINGTON - On the eve of the upcoming state visit to the United States by Chinese President Xi Jinping, a top American foreign policy official vowed Monday that the US-China relationship is not a zero-sum game, as the US is "steadily and methodically expanding the breadth and depth of our cooperation with China."
"We reject reductive reasoning and lazy rhetoric that says conflict between the US and China is inevitable, even as we've been tough with China where we disagree," US President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice said in a speech on the US-China ties at the George Washington University.
Rice noted that, under the Obama administration, the US has "deepened our engagement with China at every level -- maximizing our cooperation on areas of mutual interest while confronting and managing our disagreements."
"This isn't a zero-sum game. Our capacity to manage our differences is greater than that," she stressed.
The top US official on foreign policy said President Obama will "continue our frank and comprehensive discussions when he welcomes President Xi to the White House later this week for a State Visit."
President Xi will start his first state visit to the US Tuesday in Seattle, Washington state, before traveling to Washington D.C., the US national capital, for a summit meeting with President Obama Friday.
"Over the past two years, President Xi and President Obama have spent many hours meeting in formal and informal settings, as well as communicating through phone calls and letters, because many global challenges today can only be met with China and the United States working in concert," Rice said.
Pointing to the US media's disproportional focus on the US-China differences on issues such as cyber security and the South China Sea dispute, Rice warned that it "can be easy to lose sight of the larger arc of progress in our bilateral relationship with China."
Rice reiterated that pursuing "a productive relationship with China" is a critical element of the larger strategy of the US for the Asia Pacific as it is implementing the so-called Rebalance to Asia strategy to expand its engagement in this dynamic region.
