The two countries should work together on vital issues such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, nuclear non-proliferation, climate change and energy, Kissinger told China Daily on Sunday.

"Progress in South Korea (DPRK) depends on close cooperation between China and the US because we have learned (it) affects the security and the well-being of our country," Kissinger said.

He supports the visit of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to Pyongyang, which he compares to the Philadelphia Orchestra's tour to China in 1973.

"I also think we have to continue the Six-Party Talks in order to come up with a solution to the nuclear problem," he said.

But will Beijing and Washington keep working together closely, given the uncertainties of the US presidential campaigns? Kissinger shrugs off the worries. "In a political campaign, many things are said but they don't last."

"We have had seven American presidents since the normalization (of ties between China and the US), and no matter what was said in the campaigns, they all have come back to the theme of the beginning of the relations."

Beijing-Washington ties will keep moving forward – not always smoothly but positively – somehow like a long-term stock market curve "but without those big fluctuations", Kissinger said.

He is certain that the two sides will keep cooperating on China's core concern, the Taiwan issue, to ensure that there is no showdown in the Taiwan Straits.