On February 17 local time, visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping met with California Governor Jerry Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles. Together with US Vice President Biden, he attended the welcome luncheon hosted by Villaraigosa.

Xi said that California and Los Angeles are the gateway of exchanges between China and the US. His visit to the US this time aims at communicating with officials of the US federal and local governments and people from all sectors of life, enhancing mutual understanding, expanding pragmatic cooperation, deepening friendship between the people, implementing the consensus reached between President Hu Jintao and President Barack Obama and promoting the China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. Los Angeles is the last stop of his visit to the US. It can be said that his visit has achieved full success and realized the expected objectives.

He noted that regional cooperation between China and the US has made new progress as the overall bilateral relations move forward. Regional cooperation will actively boost the development of China-US cooperative partnership. To further stimulate regional cooperation, China and the US can make efforts in the following three aspects: first, make use of local advantages. California has strong economic power, advanced information technology, leading cultural creativity and the highest concentration of overseas Chinese in the US. California should use those advantages to strengthen cooperation with Chinese provinces and cities. Second, make use of existing mechanisms. The province and state governors' forum and the city economic cooperation conference which were launched last year between the two countries should be fully used to achieve new cooperation results and raise cooperation level. Third, adhere to mutual respect and mutual benefit. China and the US should respect each other's interests and concerns, handle them properly through consultations on an equal footing and achieve equality and mutual benefit, mutual understanding and accommodation.

Brown and Villaraigosa indicated that the development of US-China relations since President Nixon visited China 40 years ago has far exceeded people's expectation and regional cooperation played a fundamental role in the process. California and Los Angeles have unique advantages and are willing to expand cooperation, strengthen mutual investment and broaden personnel exchanges with China and foster a partnership bringing more benefits to the two peoples.

Addressing the luncheon, Biden recalled his pleasant experience of visiting China last year. He felt honored to receive Xi in the US and return the warm hospitality he had experienced in China. The time he spent on talks with Xi during this visit far exceeded his expectation, which was rare in his diplomatic career. It is very impressive and moving that Xi attaches such importance to China-US relations and especially comes to Iowa to meet friends he made 27 years ago. He is willing to work with Xi to develop vigorous and sound working relations and push forward US-China cooperative partnership.