Beijing, Feb 11 (IANS) Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday held a telephonic conversation with his US counterpart Barack Obama and accepted the latter’s invitation to pay a state visit to the United States in September.
Both sides agreed to make full preparations to ensure the success of the trip.
Exchanging New Year greetings (Chinese new year is later this month), the two leaders agreed to work together to facilitate a steady and healthy growth of China-US relations while promoting greater development of their new type of major-country relationship, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
During the conversation, Xi said that “over the past year, we have had a series of in-depth talks, reaching important consensus on China-US ties as well as significant issues concerning regional and international peace and development”.
“I look forward to continuing strategic dialogues with President Obama,” Xi added.
Meanwhile, Xi expressed the hope that the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue and China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) that would be held in the US this year would achieve as many positive results as possible under the joint efforts of the two sides.
During the conversation, the Chinese president also called on both sides to broaden cooperation in economy and trade, military, energy, environmental protection, infrastructure and law enforcement and expand people-to-people exchanges to consolidate the foundation of China-US ties.
The US was willing to work with China to maintain the momentum, strengthening pragmatic cooperation with China in such fields as economy and trade, jointly addressing regional and global challenges and controlling their differences, Obama said.
He also expressed the hope that the two countries would enhance communication and cooperation on climate change to secure a positive outcome at a major climate summit in Paris in December.
Appreciating China’s contributions to helping African countries fight the deadly Ebola epidemic, Obama said he hoped to join hands with China in promoting global health security.
Stressing that Washington attached great importance to the development of bilateral as well as global economy, Obama said the US side was ready to increase coordination with China and accommodate each other’s concerns to work for a high standard bilateral investment treaty and was ready to enhance dialogue and cooperation to lift global demand.