The Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SED) mechanism was initiated by President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush in 2006. Assistant Minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao said the SED has played an important role in pushing the advancement of relations between Beijing and Washington.

This time, China will work with the new US administration on keeping the SED mechanism to strengthen bilateral ties, according to a senior Chinese financial official in Beijing. China will discuss with the Obama administration on whether to change the dialogue’s name and contents, said Zhu, who was briefing journalists from China and the United Stated on the fifth SED, which will be held in Beijing from Dec 4-5.

The SED’s special representatives of the heads of state of the two countries, Vice-Premier Wang Qishan and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will co-chair the dialogue. It is expected that the change of the power in US will not influence the Sino-US exchanges.

According to Zhu, the dialogue has so far achieved 150 results, ranging from the macro economy to environment protection during the twice-a-year holding in China and US in turn. The achievement has shown the importance of the mechanism and it should be continued.

The global financial crisis will also be the topic discussed during the SED meeting.

Meanwhile, food safety, product quality and reduction of trade protectionism are the areas the two countries are expected to make progress in, Zhu said.

Both the two political parties in US recognize the SED widely, so no matter which party is in power, this framework for dialogue can’t be stopped, said Yuan Peng, director of the Institute of American Studies with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

However, some members of the Democratic Party have blamed the mechanism for failing to force China to raise the exchange rate of the renminbi and open wider its financial sector.

According to Yuan, it is possible that the two sides could make adjustments to the name and contents of the dialogue, and even promote the mechanism to the vice-presidential level.

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China, crisis, economy, SED, talk, U.S.