by Xinhua writers Liu Chen, Wang Chao, Hu Yousong
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Washington and Beijing may differ a lot, "but it's still in our interest to cooperate," said a veteran U.S. diplomat.
"We only need to learn how to do that because the world is not organized now as it was in the Cold War," Charles W. Freeman, who witnessed the establishment of bilateral ties over four decades ago, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
REFORMING AMERICA
Freeman called for a U.S. version of China's reform and opening up during the interview.
"In a sense, I'm arguing for a kind of Gai Ge Kai Fang ('reform and opening up' in Chinese) in the United States," said Freeman, a fluent Chinese speaker.
Freeman believes that in competing with China, the United States needs "self-strengthening."
"When the United States wants to compete with China, it should improve itself rather than pushing down China. And I don't think we have the capability to do that," he said.
China-U.S. ties have been strenuous given the ongoing trade friction, the intensifying U.S. technology blockade and the severe visa restriction for Chinese to enter the United States.
"If you look at the causes of the current confrontation, most of them are on the U.S. side," said Freeman, who accompanied then U.S. President Richard Nixon on his 1972 maiden trip to China.
"There is a sort of psychological sense of a challenge that we don't know how to meet," he said.
Freeman, 76, was a witness to the establishment of bilateral ties over four decades ago. He served as U.S. assistant secretary of defense in the 1990s.
America has its own problems, including poor fiscal policy, and a neglected infrastructure and education system, which "nobody knows what to do about," he said. "So we blame other people."
Freeman, who served as deputy chief of mission in Beijing, dismissed the rhetoric about China undermining the current global order, saying that it is in China's interest to preserve the order.
Meanwhile, America is withdrawing from the world order it led to create after WWI, Freeman added.
"U.S. is now acting in a damaging way to its own interests and the world's," he said.
VALUABLE BRI
Freeman believed that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is a "valuable concept," not "a plot" or "some kind of military thing" as some U.S. politicians have described.
"It is a means of developing commerce, increasing prosperity, reducing costs, making trade more efficient," Freeman said.
"I think it's very good. And I don't think the United States can influence it by standing outside and cursing it," Freeman said, adding that "we have to get inside and cooperate."
Speaking of the Chinese dream, he said, "as I understand ... it is to fulfill China's potential. It is to realize a good life for Chinese. It is to achieve domestic tranquility."
"All of those things are entirely compatible with the American dream and, with American interests."
The former senior diplomat also called on U.S. media to be more "objective," so that people will no longer have a "very partisan, very biased view of a lot of things that are going on in the world" by tuning into "a channel which reinforces their prejudice."
"I think we would not have the sort of issues that we do with China if our media were more objective," he added.
