Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said here Tuesday that the U.S.-China relationship will be the defining relationship for the world of the 21st century, and the two countries should work together to promote peace and human progress.
Addressing the U.S.-China University Presidents and Think Tank Forum held in Columbia University, Kissinger said "it would be imperative that we work together, to live out this relationship from the pragmatic, and from the day-to-day problems to the conceptual, to the creation of a new and competing type of the world order that promotes peace and human progress, as we are now doing on the current issue."
He stressed that conflict between China and the United States would be a disaster by each society and for the world at large. "As I said before, we do not have this choice."
Kissinger said that he has visited China more than 100 times since the first one 46 years ago, learning something on each trip, noting that the culture of China is so manifold that he will never cease learning.
