Despite continuing trade disputes, the United States and China share an unprecedented opportunity to boost the domestic economy and create jobs if they maintain close dialogue and
cooperation, former U.S. trade representatives (USTR) told Xinhua Thursday.
"China has done so well in its economic development, especially when it allows its people to be productive," Charlene Barshefsky, USTR from 1997 to 2001, said after finishing a panel discussion on U.S. trade agenda in 2011 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Several other former USTRs also spoke at the event held at the Washington-based think tank.
As a leading engine of global recovery from the financial crisis, China's growth has been extremely robust in the past three decades, and China has outpaced Japan as the second largest economy in the world, Barshefsky said.
She said the world economy has been witnessing several broad trends in recent years, including the reemergence of China and the integration of Asian countries around China, which have created a structural shift in the global trade and economic system.
As two key players in world trade, China and the United States need "more robust and more direct" dialogue to understand each other, Barshefsky said.
Clayton Yeutter, USTR from 1985 to 1989, said in an interview with Xinhua that China's fast growth provides the potential of market access for U.S. agricultural goods, manufactured products and services.
"Now China is not only a major exporter in the world, but also an important importer," he said.
Speaking about President Barack Obama's trade goal of doubling export in five years, Yeutter said "it is possible but very difficult," since the plan he laid out was to increase U.S.
exports to 2 trillion dollars from 1 trillion in 2010.
In January 2010, Obama pledged to double the country's export growth by 2015, which he said could create 2 million jobs.
Earlier on Tuesday, current USTR Ron Kirk said in a report that U.S. exports surged about 17 percent in 2010 and have supported hundreds of thousands of jobs in the country.
The global economy is now expanding after the profound crisis over the last three years, but the recovery is facing several major challenges and risks in the near term, said U.S. Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday.
The world economy is advancing at different speeds with emerging markets continue to grow robustly and advanced economies grow relatively sluggish.
"The IMF forecasts that emerging markets will grow by 6.5 percent this year, while it expects growth in Europe and Japan to be 1.5 percent," Geithner said in a testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The U.S. recovery stands in between, with growth gathering momentum and inflation risks modest, but with unemployment still unacceptably high."
He noted that the multi-speed recovery faces several major challenges and risks.
First, the historic changes in North Africa, including Egypt and Libya, have posted uncertainty to the global recovery. Second, the sovereign debt crisis remains unsolved in Europe.
"Leaders are undertaking the difficult task of designing a financing mechanism that can help support the very challenging, multi-year programs of fiscal and financial reform that are underway in several of the member states," Geithner said.
Third, the largest emerging market economies, such as China and India, are facing the usual pressures associated with strong growth. Inflation is accelerating in these economies.
Fourth, rising global commodity prices -- including for food and oil -- are causing hardship in many parts of the world.