China's top legislature to continue exchanges with US

China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), will continue exchanges with the US Congress this year to boost communication and understanding, a top official said on Saturday.

"There are a lot of exchanges between the NPC and the US Congress," the legislature's spokeswoman Fu Ying told a press conference a day ahead of the session.

Fu recalled her visit to the US late 2016 as an NPC delegation member, saying such exchanges are mutually beneficial and are conducted on an equal basis, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We should deal with the trade deficit through expanding the trade volume," the spokesperson said, noting many US lawmakers were concerned about the issue.

Fu also stressed that adherence to the one-China principle is an important basis for the stable development of China-US relations.

Earlier this week, Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi visited the US, where he had a brief informal meeting with Trump after meeting with several senior officials at the White House, among them National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

The spokeswoman added that if challenges are posed to China-US relations, "Beijing will take them as they come".

"We certainly hope the impacts are positive," Fu said, stressing cooperation is widely regarded as the main trend in relations between the two big countries.

There have been a lot of high-level exchanges between China and the US, Fu said, citing two phone conversations between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his American counterpart Donald Trump, which she said had sent a clear message that the two countries should cooperate more and be good partners.

She noted that US society does not know China very well observing from the US presidential campaign last year that all the candidates had told "old, or not-quite-true stories" about China, which is "not normal in a society where information is highly accessible".

Noting limited first-hand information about China in the US press and TV programmes, and few articles and books written by Chinese available in the United States, Fu said China will make greater efforts to offer more information on China to the international community.

--IANS

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