WASHINGTON - The just-concluded summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama is believed to mark the beginning of fruitful cooperation between the two countries in the years ahead, a senior Chinese lawmaker said Wednesday.

This "historic" summit, held at the Annenberg estate in California on June 7-8, "is an important moment for China and the United States," said Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the 12th National People's Congress, in a speech to the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institute.

"One of the most important messages coming out of this summit is their commitment to working together to build a new model of relationship for the two countries to head for partnership, not for conflict as some had feared," she said. "We hope it will lead to many years of working together with excellent results coming on the way."

Fu said despite that China and the United States have fairly different outlooks which influence their perspectives, it is important for the two sides to try to understand the thinking and way of doing things by the other party, and find a way of working together.

The former vice foreign minister noted that China is still far behind the developed world and is confronting challenges and difficulties the outside world can hardly imagine.

China is firmly committed to continuing reforms and will give priority to sustaining stable economic growth, and the United States can become China's important partner to benefit from many opportunities offered by China's progress, Fu said.

"China cannot achieve its purpose without good international environment and without working closely with the outside world, especially working constructively with the US and China's progress will contribute to peace and prosperity of the world," she said.

Talking about the US rebalancing policy in the Asia Pacific region, Fu said that China welcomes Washington to play a constructive role so that the two countries can "work together to promote the positive trend in the region, not the other way around".

"There is a lot the two countries can and need to do in Asia, and this could be where a new model of relationship between China and the United States starts in operation," she said.

During the summit at Annenberg estate, both Xi and Obama reaffirmed their commitment to seeking to build a new type of great-power relationship that features win-win cooperation based on mutual respect and benefit, so as to avoid the repetition of the zero-sum game usually seen in history between a resident power and an emerging one.