Goodwill seen as crucial for Sino-US talks

High-level meeting called chance to build confidence in stability, recovery

Beijing and Washington are expected to fully tap into opportunities created by their upcoming high-level strategic dialogue to mitigate hostility, prevent crises, patch up mutual trust and thus shore up global confidence in stability and recovery, world leaders and senior scholars have said.

They made the prediction at a time when China and the United States are seen as a pair of engines capable of driving the world through its severe economic downturn. It also comes amid concerns over uncertainties that haunt the top two economies' relations.

The high-level strategic dialogue, initially proposed by Washington, will be held on Thursday and Friday in Anchorage, Alaska.

The event will bring together Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

The meeting will be the first face-to-face, high-level contact between the two governments since US President Joe Biden took office on Jan 20.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that it hopes for "a positive outcome" from the meeting.

"We hope that China and the US can find ways to collaborate on critical issues, notably on climate change, on rebuilding the post-COVID world," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

"We are all hoping and encouraging the two large powers to think very carefully before deciding that the other one is an adversary," Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an interview with the BBC that aired on Sunday. "It is not possible for us to choose one or the other because we have very intense and extensive ties with both the US and with China."