US President George W. Bush met Thursday morning at the White House with Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi, who led a Chinese high-level delegation for the second meeting of China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED).

Wu made a briefing about the just-concluded SED, which she described as a major decision made by President Hu Jintao and President Bush.

She said the success of the two SED meetings since last December proved that against the backdrop of an accelerating globalization, China and the United States can increase understanding and mutual trust through frank dialogue, and bring a stable growth to bilateral economic relations and overall relationship as well.

China and the United States should continue to enhance their communication and talks, and summarize the experiences so that future meetings of the SED will be better.

Bush expressed his congratulations on the progress of the dialogue.

He said the United States and China share common interests in wide areas and have maintained good communication and cooperation on a number of key issues.

Although the two countries do not agree on all issues, he said, it is important that there is necessary mechanism through which the two sides can discuss certain issues and achieve results.

The US president said the SED is a very good mechanism and that it is very important to the healthy development of US-China relations. He said he paid much attention to the SED and hopes the next round of meetings will yield more results.

In addition, Bush said he understands the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue, and that he holds a firm stand on the issue and means what he said. He said he is opposed to any unilateral change of the status quo across the Taiwan Straits.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2007)