On March 21, 2005, Vice Premier Wu Yi of the State Council met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Ziguangge, Zhongnanhai.

Wu Yi noted that the economic and trade cooperation between China and the US is a major foundation and strong driving force for the stable development of bilateral ties and complies with the interest of both sides. In the principle of keeping an overall balance of foreign trade, we pay much attention to the issue of trade deficit. A number of factors including the economic complementarities instead of competition between China and the US and the different statistics method adopted by each side lead to the fairly big deficit faced by the US currently. However, we are willing to make joint efforts with the US, including expanding the export of high technologies of the US to China so as to strike a basic balance of bilateral trade. In short, the two countries should cherish the hard-win achievements of economic and trade cooperation and appropriately handle differences and friction by taking a long-term perspective and following the principle of "equality, mutual benefit and development" in a bid to push bilateral economic and trade cooperation to a new level.

Rice said that the US people and the members of the US Congress are deeply concerned about the constantly developing US-China economic and trade relations. The Chinese economy develops rapidly and expands gradually, with an increasing impact on the world economy, from which all countries in the world hope to benefit. The US also expects to continuously expand the US-China economic and trade relations through tangible measures adopted by both sides.

Both sides also exchanged opinions on how to strengthen bilateral exchanges and cooperation in such areas as energy resources and public health.

Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai was present at the meeting.