Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping told US President-elect Donald Trump that cooperation was the only choice for relations between the world’s two largest economies, with Trump saying the two had established a “clear sense of mutual respect”.
Trump lambasted China throughout the US election campaign, drumming up headlines with his pledges to slap 45 percent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator on his first day in office.
His election has injected uncertainty into relations at a time when Beijing hopes for stability as it faces daunting reform challenges at home, slowing growth and a leadership reshuffle of its own that will put a new party elite around Xi in late 2017.
In their first interaction since the US election, Chinese state media said Xi told Trump in a telephone call on Monday that as the world’s largest developing and developed economies, there were many areas where China and the United States could cooperate.
“The facts prove that cooperation is the only correct choice for China and the United States,” China Central Television(CCTV) cited Xi as saying.
