Fu Ying, vice-chairperson of the foreign affairs committee of the 13th National People's Congress, China's national legislature, delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the Penn Wharton China Summit at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the United States, April 14, 2018. The U.S. government should move beyond the traditional mindset of power politics to tackle challenges in China-U.S. relations, Fu Ying, a veteran Chinese diplomat, said here Saturday. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
PHILADELPHIA, the Untied States, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government should move beyond the traditional mindset of power politics to tackle challenges in China-U.S. relations, Fu Ying, a veteran Chinese diplomat, said here Saturday.
"The world stage needs a 'new script.' The new generation should be able to go beyond the traditional mindsets of power politics and take a new approach," said the senior Chinese diplomat on the opening ceremony of the 2018 Penn Wharton China Summit at the University of Pennsylvania.
Fu, vice-chairperson of the foreign affairs committee of the 13th National People's Congress, China's national legislature, drew on her own experience to illustrate the profound changes in U.S.-China ties over the past four decades.
"When I was at your age, the world was under the shadow of the Cold War," Fu told over 1,000 students attending the meeting. "I went to a university in Beijing and was assigned to the department of English language."
"My father, who lived in a small city, was so worried that he biked half an hour to a post office to give me a long-distance call. He told me to change my major, because he thought that English was also spoken by Americans, and the United States at that time was quite hostile to China."
A lot has changed since then, and the two countries have become important partners in many areas and both have benefited from cooperation with each other, she said, citing data that more than 300,000 students from the Chinese mainland are studying at U.S. universities, and nearly 3 million Chinese tourists travel to the United States every year.
"However, the relationship is not without difficulties," Fu said, adding that some in the United States have started to see China as a rival and a threat according to the old script of inevitable power struggles.
"The United States is threatening tough trade measures against China, putting more strains on the relationship," she said. "The question is: where does the U.S. administration want to take our relations?"
"It is in the interest of both sides to maintain this partnership and find mutually acceptable solutions to differences," she said. "We would both lose should we enter into confrontation, be it for trade or for any other matters."
Chinese President Xi Jinping has put forward the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, she said, adding: "We hope it offers a good option for the 21st century."
The annual Penn Wharton China Summit, scheduled for April 13-15 this year, is the largest student organized summit in the United States aiming to promote communications between the two countries and establish connections among students.
