China, US should avoid distractions to ties: state media

China and the US should avoid "distraction" to their overall relations due a "single or temporary" incident and look from a strategic and long-term perspective since their bilateral ties bears "a global significance," the Chinese state media commented today.
"China and the United States won't see eye to eye on everything, but this does not stop them from cooperating in many fields, as the annual meetings have shown," a commentary in the Xinhua news agency said as the 8th China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogues and 7th China-US High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange concluded here.
"What both countries should do is to look from a strategic and long-term perspective and avoid distraction to overall relations caused by a single or temporary incident," it said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry led the US delegation to the two-day meet, which was attended by senior officials from ministries including foreign affairs, trade and finance.
The dialogue yielded a "wide range" of partnership initiatives, demonstrating strong will for broadening cooperation and managing differences, the commentary said.
China and the US aired differences on some issues and sought a common ground on others.

Macro economic policy, industrial overcapacity, climate change, China-US interaction in the Asia-Pacific and other global issues were on the agenda.
According to the news agency, constructive discussions helped foster mutual trust and build a new type of major-country relationship agreed on by President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama in 2013.

The relationship between the world's-largest developing country and largest developed country exceeds the bilateral level and bears global significance, it said.
The discussion assumes significance as the two countries have in recent times been at loggerheads vis-a-vis the disputed South China Sea and the freedom of navigation issue.
China claims nearly all of the strategically vital sea despite rival claims by several Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan. It has built artificial islands suitable for military use.
More than USD 5.3 trillion of trade passes through the South China Sea annually.
During the dialogue however, the US and China agreed to speed up negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty. China would grant the US a quota of USD 38 billion under its Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor programme.

China and the US contributed to the breakthroughs in negotiating the historic Paris agreement on climate change and have maintained effective communication and coordination in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the Iranian nuclear issue, and Syria crisis, it said.
It was natural for both countries to have differences as well as common interests. As President Xi said, what is important is to refrain from taking differences as excuses for confrontation, it said.
The maturity of the bilateral relationship is mirrored in the capability of managing the differences, it said.