Cooperation is the only correct path for the world's two largest economies, whose relationship is following the direction charted by their presidents in April, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday.

"The China-US relations are in essence mutually beneficial and win-win, and the areas where we need to work together on far outweigh what divides us," Chinese Consul General in Chicago Hong Lei told a US-China Think Tank Symposium on Monday in Des Moines, Iowa.

The symposium brought together more than 20 Chinese and US experts and scholars to exchange views on China-US relations following the April meeting between US President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Florida.

The experts discussed economic cooperation and the prospects of bilateral ties.

"We are not zero-sum rivals but mutually beneficial partners," Hong told the participants. "Dialogue costs far less than confrontation."

Cui Liru, former president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said both cooperation and competition among the two powers have increased in the Asia-Pacific region. The key is to effectively manage the competition for peaceful co-existence, he said.

Tao Wenzhao, a senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that he expected the Trump administration will reduce the possible influence of the Taiwan question on Sino-US relations after the new administration has reaffirmed its One-China policy.

For example, although US Defence Secretary James Mattis said that the US remained committed to providing Taiwan "the defence articles necessary", Trump can decide when the arms sales will be conducted and on what scale or how advanced the weapons are, Tao said.

J. Stapleton Roy, former US ambassador to China, said the relationship is also the testing ground for a number of vitally important issues.

"First and foremost is the question of whether a rising power, such as China, inevitably gets into conflict with the established power, which in the present case is the United States," he said. "This is colloquially known as the Thucydides trap."

He said China had rejected this concept, promoting instead the concept of peaceful development.

"This concept is also at the heart of President Xi Jinping's proposal that China and the US should establish a new type of major power relationship marked by no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," he said.