Where can China and US find room for cooperation amid competition?

As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to pay a state visit to the United States from September 23 to 25, experts say the coexistence of competition and cooperation highlights the complexity of China-US relations and leaves room for the two sides to expand practical cooperation.

Where can Beijing and Washington find more areas of common ground? And how can cooperation in fields such as artificial intelligence, trade, climate change and people-to-people exchanges help build mutual trust? CGTN posed these questions to Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative and a research fellow at the School of International Studies, Peking University; Wang Honggang, director of the Institute of Peaceful Development at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Zhang Tengjun, associate research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

CGTN: While China and the US continue to make practical progress in law enforcement areas like counternarcotics, fugitive repatriation and anti-fraud, bilateral interactions show varied rhythms across different domains such as technology.

How should we understand such a situation? Hu Bo: Competition and cooperation existing side by side will be a normal feature of China-US relations in the future.

Wang Honggang: Competition and cooperation are normal features of relations between major powers.

The coexistence of competition and cooperation reflects both the basic characteristics of major-power relations and the particular importance of China and the United States.

China-US competition has not yet fully unfolded in areas such as finance and the military, while there is still considerable room for cooperation on issues including global governance.

This means that both competition and cooperation could become broader and deeper in the future, leaving considerable room for the choices made by the two sides.

The task is therefore to expand the list of areas for cooperation while putting boundaries and safeguards around competition, so that differences remain manageable and peaceful coexistence can be sustained.

Zhang Tengjun: The coexistence of cooperation and competition reflects the combination of deeply intertwined interests and long-term structural differences in China-US relations.

It also shows that cooperation and competition are not mutually exclusive.

Areas such as counternarcotics, fugitive repatriation and combating telecom fraud are relatively low-sensitivity issues in international public governance.

The two countries have clear shared interests and practical needs in law enforcement cooperation, making progress comparatively easier.