Interview: China-U.S. ties "limited only by imagination": ex-Australian PM

As the world awaits Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state visit to Washington, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said current China-U.S. relations are positive and limited only by imagination.

"If anyone says there is a crisis between China and U.S., that is hushuobadao [Chinese equivalent for nonsense]," the Mandarin-speaking politician told Xinhua in an interview in Beijing.

"Are there problems? Yes. Will there will problems in the future? Probably. But no crisis," said Rudd.

Noting differences between China and the U.S., in particular over the South China Sea and cyber security, Rudd said acknowledging them and trying to manage them are better for long-term relationship.

He likened China and the U.S. to a "big noisy family."

"It's like a siheyuan (quadrangle courtyards that once formed the nexus of traditional family life)... Sometimes you get into chaojia [fights], you have disagreements, you have no alternatives but to work it out, and I think you can," he said, deftly mingling his English sentences with Chinese words.

China policy is an important issue for U.S. presidential candidates as many Americans are curious about the rising power on the other side of the Pacific. The discussion is likely to reach climax during President Xi's visit later this month.

Rudd suggested that China and the U.S. need a "common strategic narrative", to explain to the people on both sides what the two countries want for the future, and what their common dreams are.

"The virtue of strategic narrative is that it embraces things that are positive, and also recognizes things that are difficult and says these things can be handled together," he said.

"It is easy in international relations to focus on what is going wrong -- people love problems. It's much harder to focus on what's positive, what's going right and what you can do better," he added.

The economic interdependence between the world's two largest economies have rendered China and the U.S. "inseparable," Rudd said.

Together, the two countries represent about 40 percent of global GDP. They are also the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters.

"U.S. and China should have long-term economic development to create jobs for the world, and to have a sustainable natural environment for the next generations," he said.

Commenting on the recent global market rout and slowing growth in China, Rudd stressed that although China's economy has run into strong headwinds while transforming from old to new growth models, it still has strong fundamentals.

China's economy grew by 7 percent in the first half of this year, which is among the highest in major economies. Premier Li Keqiang said last week that China's economy is not headed for a "hard landing."

"We need to take a deep breath and put everything into context. China is still contributing to global growth, while many economies are not."

"In every country's economic development, no one ever has a smooth ride," he said.

Rudd also mentioned economic success, in addition to environmental preservation and peace keeping, as a key mission in the global community of common destiny.

Over the past few years, China and the U.S. have worked closely during the global financial crisis, to address climate change and to secure a nuclear deal with Iran.

In particular, China and the U.S. have common interests in maintaining peace, which means a common campaign against terrorism, Rudd added.

"Both China and U.S. deeply despise terrorism. We have a problem with extremist Islamist terrorism, whether it's in Xinjiang, in Iraq, in North Africa, or whether it's 9/11 or in Kunming. It's the same thing," he said. Endi