Editor's Note: US exports to China significantly outperformed export growth to the other top 10 US trading partners including Brazil by 180 percent, but US primary interests still lie in securing access to potential Chinese markets. The US-China Business Council looks at China as a $250 billion market for US companies with still greater potential for further growth.

Now China is making great efforts toward improving the two nations' economic cooperation. In this article, to share his views with our readers, Li Zhongzhou, former director-general of MOFCOM and former division director of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, explains about this development.

The 10 years from 2001 to 2011 witnessed rapid expansion of China-US trade and economic relations. The United States played the key role in negotiating the terms and conditions for China's accession to the World Trade Organization. It extracted the greatest concessions from China in the tariff schedule contained in the China Accession package agreement. The US holds initial negotiating rights for 7,051 tariff numbers of the more than 7,000 tariff numbers package. In other words, the tariff schedule reflects fundamental US trade interests.