China News Agency, Beijing, March 20th, title: Kissinger talks about China and the United States again: the two sides should make greater efforts than ever to cooperate
China News Agency reporter Li Xiaoyu
The Sino-US high-level strategic dialogue has just ended, and former US Secretary of State Kissinger has appeared in China again.
However, this time it is in the form of a video.
The 2021 China Development Forum will be held in Beijing on the 20th.
In the video speech, Kissinger recalled his experience of visiting China as a "mysterious visitor" 50 years ago.
Data map: Former US Secretary of State Kissinger.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Sha Hanting
Kissinger disclosed in his book "The White House Years: Memoirs of Kissinger" that on a summer day in July 1971, Kissinger, then the US President’s National Security Affairs Assistant, used “sudden physical discomfort” as an example during a visit to Pakistan. You were sent to rest at the official residence of the President of Pakistan, but what he actually walked in was a plane bound for Beijing.
It was this secret meeting that allowed China and the United States to transcend their differences and realize the "ice-breaking" of bilateral relations.
Talking about this period of history, Kissinger said in his speech: "In the opening remarks of the meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai, I said something about'mysterious China.' Premier Zhou said to me:'What is mysterious about China!' Over the past century, I have learned a lot about China, and the United States and China have also cooperated on key issues."
However, even with the deepening of his understanding of China, the nearly one-hundred-year-old "China Master" is still amazed by the tremendous changes in this country.
Today, China's economic aggregate has exceeded one hundred billion yuan, and the per capita GDP has exceeded US$10,000 for two consecutive years.
Under the epidemic last year, China's total import and export volume and international market share both hit record highs, and for the first time surpassed the United States to become the world's largest foreign capital inflow country.
"If someone showed me a picture of Beijing 50 years ago and compared it with Beijing at that time, I couldn't believe that such a drastic change could have taken place," Kissinger said.
Fifty years ago, Kissinger rushed to promote Sino-US cooperation; 50 years later, he still firmly believes that the two countries should further strengthen cooperation.
As a witness of the "big storms" between the two countries, Kissinger is not pessimistic about the various problems that have emerged in Sino-US relations in recent years.
He said frankly at the 2019 Innovation Economy Forum that China is an economic power, and it is inevitable that China and the United States will "step on each other".
At this China Development Forum, Kissinger also said, "The United States and China are two great societies, with different cultures and different histories, so sometimes we have different views on certain things."
"Modern technology, global communication and global economy require both parties to make greater efforts to cooperate than ever before, because world peace and prosperity depend on the understanding between the two societies." Kissinger said in the video speech , "How important it is to strengthen cooperation between major industrial and technological powers and develop positive bilateral relations is the same between China and the United States."
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