Interview: China-U.S. cooperation vital to address global challenges: Cambodian scholar

A Cambodian academic has said that the cooperation between China and the United States is essential to address global challenges, adding that the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States will enhance mutual trust between the two countries.

"The world needs China and the United States to cooperate and play an active and constructive role on the world stage in order to address the global challenges that threaten every nation on the planet," Pou Sothirak, Executive Director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, told Xinhua.

He said those challenges include competing territorial claims, weaknesses in the global financial system, inadequate job creation, growing environmental damage, air and water pollution, potential health pandemics, inadequate or insecure food, water, and energy resources, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, as well as terrorism.

Chinese President Xi Jinping flew to the United States on Tuesday for a state visit at the invitation of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Sothirak said the visit will be a good opportunity for President Xi and President Obama to discuss how best they could enhance their collective relations amid ongoing mutual distrust and enforce their combined actions to address global and regional challenges.

"It will be an opportune timing for the Chinese president to set new tones for China-U.S. relations with the outgoing U.S. president," he said. "Their bilateral talks are expected to have a significant impact with the next U.S. president as the world's two largest economies aim to redefine the 'New Model of Major Country Relations.'"

The expert said a key element of this new model will be for the two leaders to identify strategic areas of attention for them to cooperate on rather than becoming entrenched in deeper distrust so as to ensure that their mutual interests can be safeguarded peacefully for the benefit of the world at large.

Sharing his view on the roles of China and the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, Sothirak said it will be beneficial for China and the United States to cooperate, rather than compete all out for their ultimate national interests without regarding other countries' national interests.

"The visit to Washington D.C. will be a good opportunity for President Xi to explain clearly to President Obama that China does not seek hegemony, expansion and will never inflict the tragedies it suffered in the past as he had eloquently announced in front of Tiananmen Square before the parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the victory over Japan at the end of World War II," he said.

He foresaw that President Xi could also assure President Obama that China's rise poses no threat to Southeast Asian nations and to regional order that was established at the end of World War II, and that China is willing and sincere in utilizing its sustained progress to contribute to world peace and security.

Likewise, President Obama should articulate the U.S.'s view of the basic principles of a "New Model of Major Country Relations" and how they would be applied in practice, he said.

"The U.S. president needs to reassure his Chinese counterpart that Washington would live up to the promise that the United States will refrain from stirring up and encouraging China's neighbors to confront China and its policy of "pivoting" or " rebalancing" to Asia is not intended to constrain China's rise," he said. "The United States should also mention that it is willing to advise its friends and allies in the Asia-Pacific region and urge them to exercise restraint and make efforts to find a compromise with China on issues where China feels strongly that its interests are threatened."

Sothirak said he personally welcomed the meeting between the two top leaders of China and the United States in order to search for a better way to develop a common understanding on the basic principles of a "New Model of Major Country Relations."

"Both China and the United States must continue to hold such high level meetings between the two presidents and engage with one another sincerely through strategic dialogue so as to help the two countries see the world and their respective roles in it clearly," he said.

"The more they meet each other, the better the two nations can enforce their strategic thrust toward greater cooperation for the prosperity and security of their respective peoples and the peoples of other nations," he said. Endi