The key to sound relations between states lies in amity between peoples, which largely stems from mutual understanding.

And friendly people-to-people exchanges can be conductive to states' relations. Talent exchanges and cooperation in particular can serve as bridges and bonds for mutual learning among civilizations.

Those were some observations by Zhang Jianguo, administrator of China's State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA), at a ceremony on Thursday at the Artosino Gallery in New York City.

The ceremony was held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the New York office of the China Association for International Exchange of Personnel (CAIEP).

About 30 guests, including professionals and officials in related fields in both China and the US attended the event. They discussed the talent exchange between the two countries by recalling the past and foreseeing the future.

"If we look back at China-US relations, our state-to-state ties just began with people-to-people exchanges 50 years ago; it is the Ping Pong diplomacy that drove normalization of China-US relations," said Zhang Qiyue, Chinese consul general in New York.

"On this people-to-people exchange, the CAIEP has played a positive role in fostering subnational ties between our two countries over the last 30 years," she added.

Zhang said CAIEP has maintained deep engagement with a host of US educational institutions, industrial associations and famous scholars; made significant efforts in arranging academic visits; and offered helpful services to foreign experts working in China.

"This has greatly substantiated our people-to-people ties, as we see many foreign experts have come to China, lived in China and helped China in many ways to transform into a modern and prosperous society," she said.

"These efforts form the fundamental part of our state-to-state ties and help to build an even closer relationship between the two countries," she added.

According to the statistics jointly released by SAFEA and the National Statistics Bureau, the number of foreign experts working in China exceeded 908,000 in 2016.

Zhang Jianguo said President Xi Jinping, who attaches great importance to Sino-US relations and pays attention to the international exchange of professionals, has met with representatives of foreign experts and international friends three times since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China five years ago.

President Xi pointed out that to strengthen international talent exchanges and cooperation helps China learn from achievements of excellent world civilizations; promotes creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese civilization; helps strengthen mutual respect among different civilizations; and deepens mutual understanding between peoples across the world.

In the 19th National Congress of the CPC in October, General Secretary Xi re-emphasized that no country alone can address the challenges facing mankind, and no country could afford to retreat into self-isolation.

"China would always pursue development with its door open wide, build a new platform for international cooperation, inject new momentum for common development, and promote the building of an open world economy and a community with a shared and bright future for mankind," Zhang said.

"Everyone always asked me what is the future of US-China relations, and the answer is very simple, it depends on you (people)," said Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

"If the people-to-people relationship is weak, then there is no foundation that the government-to-government relations can sit on," he said.

CAIEP is a national public service institution approved by the Chinese government, specializing in international exchanges of professionals under the guidance of SAFEA.

xiaohong@chinadailyusa.com