Cooperation leads US, China to prosperity, security: Obama

• Source: Xinhua
• [16:34 November 16 2009]
• Comments

US President Barack Obama gestures as he delivers a speech at a dialogue with Chinese youth at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum during his four-day state visit to China, Nov. 16, 2009.

Bilateral cooperation between the United States and China enables both countries to be more  prosperous and more secure, US President Barack Obama said in Shanghai Monday in a speech to a group of Chinese youngsters.   

"Today we have a positive, constructive and comprehensive  relationship that opens the door to partnership on the key global  issues of our time: economic recovery, development of clean energy, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and the surge of climate  change, the promotion of peace and security in Asia and around the globe," Obama said. 

The president made the speech at the Shanghai Science and  Technology Museum, as part of his four-day state visit to China.    

"We have seen what is possible when we build on our mutual  interests and engage on the basis of mutual respect," Obama said.    

The success of that engagement depends on understanding, on  sustaining an open dialogue and learning about one another and  from one another, the president said.    

Obama believed the United States and China are not "predestined adversaries," saying that the two countries "share much in common" but "are different in certain ways."    

Citing the Chinese proverb "consider the past and you shall  know the future," Obama said the United States and China have  known setbacks and challenges over the last 30 years.     

"Our relationship has not been without disagreement and  difficulties. But the notion that we must be adversaries is not  predestined," Obama said.     

It is no coincidence that the relationship between our  countries has accompanied a period of positive change, he added.     

Obama hoped to deepen the partnership between the United States and China in the future, saying that the young people whose talent, dedication and dreams will help shape the twenty-first century.    

He pointed out that one country's success need not come at the  expense of another.    

"That is why the United States insists we do not seek to  contain China's rise, on the contrary, we welcome China as a  strong and prosperous and successful member of the community of  nations, a China that draws on the rights, strengths and  creativity of individual Chinese like you."