People from different walks of life in the United States have stressed the global significance of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit, expressing hopes that the visit will strengthen bilateral cooperation across various sectors.
Xi arrived in the United States on Wednesday to begin a three-day state visit at the invitation of U.S. President Donald Trump. It comes after Trump paid a state visit to China in May, which marked the first by a U.S. president in nearly nine years.
"I think these have been unique spectacles and these are historical moments which will reverberate, I mean years and decades later where the two are partners, not rivals and should see that relationship in that context and whether the two sides should coexist with each other," said Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies.
"You know, these are the two largest and most important countries in the world, geopolitically, economically, so virtually anything these two countries do with each other, it's going to have an impact on the people," said Dan McClory, a U.S. international investor.
Many Americans also noted that Xi's visit will create more opportunities to foster people-to-people exchanges between the two countries and further enhance mutual trust.
"What we need is a really firm base of understanding and that's what person-to-person kinds of relationships happen, that's what they bring. And I believe that they also promote trade, to be honest," said Michael Dembrow, former Senate member of Oregon.
"The announcement that President Xi made of inviting 100,000 youngsters to China, I think is a very welcome one. I would like to see also that the U.S. be a little bit more welcoming in terms of Chinese scholars, academics and students. The hope is that as U.S.-China relations ease and settle into a more coexistent framework that it will also encourage people to go across and see each other first hand and that would be, as I said, the most important stabilizing ballast in the relationship," said Gupta.
Xi said 100,000 young Americans will be invited to visit China for exchanges and study over the next five years on Thursday morning while attending a welcome ceremony held by Trump at the White House.
US experts, officials hail significance of Xi's visit, call for closer cooperation
