US President George W. Bush, visits Beijing today, his second trip to China in five months following his coming to join the annual APEC Leadership Meeting in Shanghai last October. His visit is expected to bring the warming Sino-US ties to a new height.
President Bush and his wife Laura Bush, escorted by Secretary of State Collin Powell and US national security advisor Condeleezza Rice, left the South Korea's Osan air force base Thursday morning, and arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport at around 10:00 am (GMT 2:00am).
Bush and his Chinese counterpart President Jiang Zemin are expected to discuss a wide range of topics of common interest, including bilateral relations, extending trade ties, fighting world terrorism, human rights and prevention of dangerous weapons to the wrong hands.
"Constructive cooperation between the US and China will be the focus of President Bush's visit," said Mei Zhaorong, president of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs .
"Both countries should increase mutual understanding and reduce differences through dialogues based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and the three communiques between the two in order to develop mutually beneficial, healthy and stable bilateral relations," he said.
"The billions of people here in China hope President Bush can fulfill his promise of developing constructive cooperative relations with China by carrying out concrete action," said Mei.
The past year witnessed a series of twists and turns in bilateral ties. However, with joint efforts, relations have showed improvement in the second half of the year.
Many Chinese experts have pointed out the Bush administration has readjusted its stance on China from a "strategic competitor" to stress development of constructive cooperative relations with China since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The development of Sino-American relations is of the interests of the two nations but also benefits worldwide peace, stability and development, Mei said, adding that, as the biggest developing country and the biggest developed country in the world, China and the US respectively have many common interests, yet substantial differences remain in bilateral relations.
Experts have pointed out the Taiwan question -- the most sensitive issue in the bilateral relations -- has proved to be the major disruption to the stable development of bilateral US relations. Chinese urge the US to stop arms sales to Taiwan and abandon its assistance to Taiwanese separatist forces, the experts said, calling the US to abide by the one-China policy and peaceful reunification.
Trade volume between the two nations hit US$80.5 billion last year, and the US has been China's second biggest trade partner while China is its fourth biggest.
Nixon began reaching out to China in 1971. American table tennis players had visited Beijing that year, in what reporters dubbed "ping pong diplomacy." Its success apparently encouraged the two sides to further contacts. No US official had openly set foot on the Chinese mainland since 1949, the founding of the People's Republic of China. The separation had been deepened by the Korean War, when the two governments fought on opposing sides.
On July 15, 1971, Nixon surprised Americans by announcing that he would go to China.
His national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, had been to Beijing in secret and said successful talks would "transform the very framework of global relationships."
On his first day in Beijing, Nixon met Mao for a wide-ranging, 70-minute talk. The 79-year-old Chinese leader was ill, doctors waited in the next room.
Nixon's visit produced the "Shanghai Communique" calling for trade, diplomatic and "people to people" contacts.
It left open the tougher questions of formal diplomatic recognition of the Chinese government and the status of Taiwan. Washington finally broke ties with Taiwan in 1979 and recognized Beijing as the sole legal government of China.
(China Daily February 21, 2002)
