BEIJING, Jan. 22, 2011 (Xinhua) --

Just as the Chinese people joyfully await the traditional Spring Festival, President Hu Jintao returned here Saturday after successfully concluding a four-day state visit to the United States, which opens a new chapter in cooperative partnership between China and the United States.

During his visit, President Hu spared no efforts to make friends, to proclaim China's philosophy of peaceful development and to express the Chinese people's willingness to join hands with the world to greet a spring of harmonious development.

In Washington, President Hu and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, agreed to build a China-U.S. cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit, and marked out priorities of the development of China-U.S. relations for the future.

Hu met with people from all walks of life in the United States, expounding to them the various policies of the Chinese government and China's stand on developing China-U.S. ties in the new era.

The new definition of China-U.S. relations, "the China-U.S. cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit", depicts the outstanding prospects for the development of the relationship, which has always advanced despite some hardships.

The strengthening of bilateral cooperation and the shaping of a new type of relationship between two great nations will give some enlightenment to the world when tackling regional and international issues, will strengthen the belief of the international communities jointly facing common challenges and will forge a new way for all countries to coexist harmoniously in a globalized world.

Looking back on the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, we find that fresh information, or "information of Spring", has been transmitted at the important moments in every historic evolution of the bilateral ties.

We still remember the historic handshake in Beijing between China's Chairman Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and U.S. President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) in 1972, and the first visit by a Chinese leader to the United States by Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) in 1979.

Currently, China's relationship with the world has greatly changed. During his visit to the U.S., President Hu linked the development of China-U.S. relations closely to China's peaceful development and the harmonious development of the world.

This not only reveals the strategic vision and political wisdom of Chinese leaders but also displays the responsibility of the Chinese people in safeguarding world peace, in boosting joint development and in promoting a harmonious world.

During his visit, President Hu stressed that a China-U.S. cooperative partnership should be based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. "Mutual respect and mutual benefit" is not only the keyword in defining China-U.S. relations, but also the principle China honors in the common development with other partners.

Only when a country respects others can it understand and trust others, thus creating an atmosphere of working together for a win-win outcome.

Respect has always been the cornerstone of China in its outside contacts. China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, while it hopes to get the same in return from the world in issues concerning its core interests.

In the second decade of the 21st century, as both China's relations with other partners and the China-U.S. cooperative partnership are buds which need attention and protection, the principle of "mutual respect and mutual benefit" is sure to provide the soil with sufficient ingredients for their growth and blossoming.

A China-U.S. joint statement issued during President Hu's visit showed a more vigorous China-U.S. relationship is not only in the fundamental interests of the two peoples, but also conducive to the whole Asian and Pacific region and the world at large.

The China-U.S. relationship is more than a bilateral one, rather it is of strategic importance and global impact.

Beijing and Washington viewing each other in an objective and sensible light and respecting each other's choices in social systems and development paths will open a new horizon and build a harmonious and open-minded atmosphere for all countries to coexist harmoniously and independently choose their development paths.

President Hu's sincere exchange of views with U.S. representatives from all walks of life also represented the goodwill from China's 1.3 billion people. To Americans and people all over the world, he conveyed such a wish: China welcomes the world to participate in its development and will constantly expand new opening-up fields and room to promote regional and global common development.

This manifestation makes it clear to the world that China's development is not a zero-sum game. The Chinese president's U.S. visit, timed at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, is sure to sow the seed of China-U.S. friendship in the hearts of masses of people, and broad involvement of the people will be the fertile soil for China's cooperation with the United States and the whole world.

As a goodwill messenger of a big country in the East, President Hu's successful visit to the United States will push the China-U.S. cooperative partnership toward a brighter future, turning a new page in the history of China-U.S. ties.

As a goodwill messenger of a population of 1.3 billion, President Hu's successful visit will more clearly define the relations between China's development and the co-prosperity of the world, opening a new chapter in the history of international relations.

Editor: Zhang Xiang