|
 Wu Xi, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in
Washington, said individual issues should not be allowed to
overshadow the overall U.S.-China relationship and that common
interests, including bilateral trade volume of $550 billion last
year, "far outweigh" differences between the countries.
"Resorting to microphone diplomacy, or pointing fingers at each
other, will not solve any problems," Wu told a meeting on Capitol
Hill to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Congress's U.S.-China
Working Group.
"The right choice is to recognize our differences, respect each
other and engage in real dialogue," she said. "The choice we make
today will decide the future of our two great nations, as well as
the entire world."
 Wu was referring to disagreements between Washington and Beijing
over China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims in
the South China Sea, which have raised fears of military
confrontation, and a massive cyber attack on the U.S. government
that U.S. officials have blamed on Chinese hackers.
China has called the hacking allegations irresponsible and says it
has the right to build artificial islands in contested territory.
Wu said the two sides should use the annual meeting of the
U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue from June 22-24, and a
U.S. visit this week of a top Chinese military official, "to
articulate the outcome and deliverables" for Xi's September visit to
Washington.
"We need to address our differences in a proper way," she told
reporters.
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Wu said she did not see any U.S.-China "tensions," as the countries
shared a common interest in peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific
and always discussed differences.
"We have no alternative but to succeed in the interests of our two
nations and the world," she said.
U.S. Representative Rick Larson, a co-founder of the bi-partisan
Working Group, said that as the world's two largest economies, the
United States and China "cannot afford not to engage."
At the same time, he called the South China Sea and "indications"
that the cyber attack originated in China "very challenging" issues
that could not be pushed to one side.
"We can't mask those, we can't hide from those," he said.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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