Liu praises joint effort on innovation

'One of the most dynamic and most highlighted' parts of nation exchanges

Innovation cooperation between China and the US has provided great opportunities for both nations' people, Vice-Premier Liu Yandong said.

Liu's first stop on her visit to the US was the 2017 China-US Young Maker Summit & China-US Youth Innovation Center inauguration ceremony on Monday at New York University. The event was part of the China-US Social and People-to-People Dialogue.

Liu visited the work exhibited at the China-US Young Maker Competition from NYU and Chinese universities, accompanied by NYU President Andrew Hamilton.

"Innovation cooperation is one of the most dynamic and the most highlighted components of people-to-people exchanges between China and the US," Liu said.

"Both Chinese and American people are all very creative," Liu said. "The US has been the center of global technological innovation, and today's China has put innovation as the primary driving force, implementing the strategy of innovation-driven development.

"I hope the young people in both China and the US would be the main driver of innovation development and the vanguard of China-US cultural exchanges, injecting positive energy into the development of China-US relations," Liu said.

"We have American students launching startups in China, and we have Chinese startups in the US. What can be better than that? - that's what comes from collaboration," Hamilton said.

"China has a rich history of innovation," said Deborah Stokes, vice-president of Dell EMC. "And the US is a fairly very young country in terms of innovation, so the opportunity to combine the young aspects of innovation with more traditional and established ways of innovation through cooperation is a fabulous idea."

"I'm here to see the future innovation collaborations between China and the US," said Robert Chang, a physician at the Stanford School of Medicine. "Nowadays, we see lots of things happening in China really fast in terms of innovation, and many of them even come to Silicon Valley."

"I'm a graduate of Peking University; I think it's important to learn from and cooperate with American scholars when we study in the US," said Lei Ting, a Stanford student who exhibited his project on flexible and stretchable electronics.

Liu said her visit to the US was based on the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump during their meeting in April at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The two sides agreed to establish high-level dialogue mechanisms, including the diplomatic and security dialogue, the comprehensive economic dialogue, the law enforcement and cybersecurity dialogue, and the social and people-to-people dialogue.

Liu and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will co-chair the dialogue on Thursday in Washington.

ruinanzhang@chinadailyusa.com