Purpose
The Senior Dialogue was conceived at a 2004 APEC meeting, after a suggestion made by the Chinese President Hu Jintao to U.S. President George H. W. Bush to create a forum where the global superpower and emerging global player could come together and discuss issues of mutual concern. The typically two-day rounds help establish a framework for bilateral cooperation between the two countries, and give the U.S. an opportunity to shape China's impact on the world as its economy continues to industrialize.
Integrating China into the world's security, economic and political systems continues to be the U.S.'s current policy in dealing with China's rise on the global sphere. However, China's current international economic policies are increasingly rankling American workers and businesses, among others around the world who consider China's trade practices unfair. On June 13, 2007, four U.S. senators introduced a bill that would pressure China to allow its currency to rise in value, which would help close the huge U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit a record $233 billion in 2006. However, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson believes in pursuing a less confrontational and non-protectionist approach.
Read more about this topic: Senior Dialogue
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)