China, US must move from trade disputes to tackle global issues

Premier Li Keqiang said he wanted to push for stronger bilateral ties between China and the United States. "Healthy development of China-US ties is in the interests of people in both countries and what the international community wishes to see," he told a news conference at the conclusion of the annual session of the National People's Congress on Thursday.

His remarks came as senior officials from the two countries are set to hold a high-level strategic dialogue in Anchorage, Alaska, next week. It will certainly be better for the world if the US and China, the world's two biggest economies, can manage their differences and build a relationship based on "mutual respect and noninterference", as Li hoped for.

President Xi Jinping, an ardent multilateralist, has made clear that some of the Cold War rhetoric that has been coming out of the US in recent years is not for him."To build small circles or start a new Cold War, to reject, threaten or intimidate others, to willfully impose decoupling, supply disruption or sanctions, and to create isolation or estrangement will only push the world into division and even confrontation," he told the World Economic Forum Virtual Event of the Davos Agenda 2021 on Jan 25.