The United States and China have a robust economic relationship, and as the world’s two largest economies, we have a stake in each other’s success and prosperity. Building on President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping’s shared commitment to create a new model of major country relations, Vice President Joe Biden discussed with President Xi and senior Chinese officials ways to strengthen U.S.-China cooperation to benefit the citizens of both of our countries and address global challenges. They decided to expand U.S.-China cooperation in addressing climate change, enhancing transparency and resilience in global energy markets, and ensuring safe and well-regulated bilateral trade in food and pharmaceuticals. In addition, both countries reaffirmed their commitment to fully implement the measures pledged by each country during the Economic Track of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED), to further support strong domestic and global growth, promote open trade and investment, enhance international rules and global economic governance, and foster financial market stability and reform.
Working Together to Combat Global Climate Change
The United States and China are the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters. Strong action by both countries is necessary to address the global challenge of climate change and provide essential leadership for the rest of the world. President Obama and President Xi have made climate change a priority area for bilateral cooperation. Today, both countries reaffirmed the agreements reached by leaders earlier this year regarding phasing down the production and consumption of the highly potent greenhouse gas hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) using the expertise and institutions of the Montreal Protocol and to take next steps in the process, including the establishment of an open-ended contact group in the Montreal Protocol. China committed to implement aggressive low sulfur fuel and motor vehicle emissions standards and for the first time will include China VI emissions standards. These standards, when implemented, will have significant air quality and climate benefits and reduce vehicle fuel use. The United States pledged to provide technical assistance to help China achieve these goals. Furthermore, both countries have pledged to make concrete progress on initiatives in the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group by the 2014 meeting of the S&ED. On fossil fuel subsidies, China, together with the United States, committed to undergo peer reviews under the G-20 process, and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption. Both countries emphasized the importance of maintaining close contact including through leader-level discussions to bring about a successful outcome in the multilateral climate change agreement that is currently being developed for completion at the Paris climate conference in 2015.
Enhancing Energy Market Transparency and Security
As the world’s two largest energy consumers and producers, the United States and China share a goal of working to ensure global energy markets are well-supplied and resilient. Today, the United States and China took critical steps to enhance energy market transparency and security in both countries and around the world. China committed to develop the capacity to publish more complete public energy statistics on a more frequent basis, and enable stronger cooperation with the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI). This will improve energy data transparency, which helps the functioning of global energy markets and reduces oil price volatility. The United States pledged to share its expertise to help China in this area. China welcomed domestic and international investors’ participation in shale gas exploration and development in China, which will provide greater commercial opportunities for U.S. companies in this fast growing sector. The two countries also committed to cooperate on policies for managing strategic petroleum reserves, which will improve our ability to respond to future oil supply disruptions.
Enhancing Food and Drug Safety
To strengthen food and drug safety for U.S. consumers and to assist China with its own regulatory system, China committed to allow a substantial increase in the number of U.S. food and drug inspectors stationed in China. China also committed to take steps towards introducing a framework for registering manufacturers of bulk chemicals that can be used as active pharmaceutical ingredients, which would be a critical step in combatting dangerous counterfeit pharmaceuticals around the world. In addition, China took an important step to strengthen the protection of pharmaceutical innovations by announcing that patent holders will be able to submit additional data to support their patents after filing their initial applications.