To Achieve Friendship, US-China Must Collaborate
A VIP reception co-hosted by Asia Society at the Waldorf-Astoria was held in honor of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday, Sept. 22. Asia Society Exec. VP Jamie Metzl said that despite recent currency and trade disagreements, the US-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.
Wen spoke positively at the reception on Wednesday, highlighting the importance of the two countries working together. The US and China are deeply interdependent, Metzl noted, and must collaborate as much as possible and ensure that points of difference can be handled in a respectful and effective manner.
Recently, Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner expressed concern that China was manipulating the currency. Unfortunately, the rest of the world expects the US to exert pressure on China to raise the value of its currency, a classic example of "Tragedy of the Commons," Metzl said. The US model has worked well for over 65 years, but it is slowly tiring now. Metzl said the rest of the world needs to step up so that economies on the developing world do not compete with China on the Renminbi's potential harms.
Earlier today, Metzl discussed US-China relations on Bloomberg TV.