China-U.S. consultation on people-to-people exchange "very successful": vice premier

NEW YORK, Nov. 22 -- The just-concluded Fourth China-U. S. High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange was "very successful," with as many as 75 specific outcomes achieved, visiting Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong said here Friday.

The consultation, held in Washington D.C. Thursday and co- chaired by Liu and U.S. State Secretary John Kerry, focused on six areas, namely education, science and technology, culture, sports, women and youth, said Liu while addressing a luncheon at the Carnegie Hall in midtown Manhattan.

"I'm convinced that this round of consultation will help lift people-to-people exchange between the two countries to a new height, further deepen the mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, and lay a solid foundation for the building of a new model of major-country relationship between China and the United States," she stressed.

Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama sent congratulatory messages to the consultation, the fourth of its kind since 2010.

As part of the consultation's outcomes, the two countries have agreed to maintain and further expand educational programs on exchange of students and scholars, launch bilateral and global science and technology forums, and set up a China-U.S. innovation demonstration park. China's Ministry of Culture and the Smithsonian Institution of the United States also signed an agreement to carry out a 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival China Theme Program.

Other programs involve sports exchange between the two countries' youth, teenagers and people with disabilities, the promotion of Chinese Kung Fu and Qigong in the United States, dialogue and exchange between female leaders and university students of both countries, and closer communications and cooperation between young leaders, artists and entrepreneurs from both sides.

The Chinese vice premier, whose birthday happened to be on Friday, told the luncheon guests that she felt "as good as with my family" celebrating this special day with "my American friends here." She added that she had met nearly 1,000 Americans from all circles of life at 32 events during her packed U.S. visit, which began in Chicago, a city in the U.S. state of Illinois, Sunday and is wrapping up in New York Friday night.

While the audience extended birthday greetings to her with cheers and applause, Liu also wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving with their families.

Before the luncheon, Liu joined a symposium on China-U.S. cultural exchange and cooperation, and witnessed the signing of several cultural cooperation agreements between the two sides.

Later in the day, she paid a visit to 90-year-old Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state under President Richard Nixon, who played a key role in the normalization of China- U.S. relations in the 1970s and thus long dubbed "an old friend of the Chinese people."