Vice-Premier Li Keqiang called for more trust and broadening common interests between China and the United States while meeting a visiting US congressional delegation on Thursday.

Vice-Premier Li Keqiang meets Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday. Royce is leading a US congressional delegation to China. [Xu Jingxing / China Daily]

Li said the two countries should take care of each other's core interests, which form the basis of relations, while managing and controlling contradictions and differences. He hopes the US Congress will play a more constructive role.

Headed by Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the five-member delegation consists of Republicans and Democrats.

Both parties are active in developing Sino-US relations and the two countries should increase dialogue, deepen cooperation and contribute more to the prosperity of the two countries as well as world peace and stability, Li said.

He also noted that China and the US are in different stages of development, and are far more complementary than competitive. Officials from both sides should create a better environment for cooperation between enterprises and localities, Li urged. In 2012, China-US trade increased 8.5 percent from a year earlier to nearly $500 billion. But the past year has also seen growing trade and investment barriers set by the US government against Chinese companies.

The US has slapped anti-dumping and countervailing duties on billions of dollars of solar panels from China, and urged US firms to stop doing business with China's telecom giants Huawei and ZTE, saying they could pose a security threat because of ties to the Chinese government.

Jia Xiudong, a senior researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said China and the US are highly dependent on each other, especially in economic and trade areas. However, during the presidential election last year many commercial issues were politicized, which left an impression with many US citizens that China's trade and investment has created problems in the US.

"It is not a fact that this has created problems in the US and both countries should properly handle issues to avoid any negative outcome on common interests and general relations," Jia said.

The two countries should also increase trust and cooperation on regional and international issues, said Jia, noting that friction between the two have increased in recent years especially with the US "pivot to Asia" and involvement in disputes between its partners and allies in the region and China.

Royce, during a visit to the Philippines on Tuesday, said China should agree to face the Philippines before a United Nations arbitration tribunal to avoid a possible crisis over their long-raging territorial disputes in the South China Sea, reported the Associated Press.

Last week Manila notified China that it will challenge Beijing before an arbitration tribunal under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday that China does not approve of such a practice that goes against the consensus that has already been reached.

China and the Association of South East Asian Nations, of which the Philippines is a member, reached consensus in solving relevant disputes through negotiation between directly concerned sovereign states.

Contact the writers at chengguangjin@chinadaily.com.cn and dingqingfen@chinadaily.com.cn