With tremendous common interests and daunting global challenges calling for their cooperation and coordination, the souring of relations between the two largest economies and two major players on the world stage serves no party's interests. That is why it is heartening to hear the two-day talks that finished on Wednesday between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Beijing were "candid, substantial and constructive".

Those words have been used before to describe such high-ranking exchanges between the two sides over the past few years. That they were used again this time can be considered a reassuring sign that their potential frictional respective agendas for the talks were not abrasive and did not result in meaningless lecturing.

Although Beijing and Washington have different notions of what has caused the downturn in their relations, as well as different ideas on how to repair them, the ups and downs of the Sino-US ties over the past decades should be considered a common treasure trove from which, as Wang urged, they can draw some valuable lessons. Over the past decades, China-US cooperation has been of a win-win nature, and it should continue to be so. But for this to happen, the two countries need to establish a correct understanding of each other.

The Taiwan question is a fundamental core interest and an internal affair of China, and the US should realize that its speculating on the question makes the "pro-independence" secessionists the biggest threat to peace in the Taiwan Strait. As long as the US has the right perception on the nature and gravity of the Taiwan question, it will realize that supporting the secessionists is a ticking time bomb. Sullivan reiterated that there has been no change in the US' stance on the Taiwan question. But the administration's actions have belied those claims in the past, and the US still has much to do to convince Beijing that is truly the case.

China's maritime disputes with its neighbors in the South China Sea did not become as fraught as they are today until the US started taking advantage of them to turn China's partners into pawns of its China-containment strategy. The hotspot issues that the US has kept itself busy in resolving these days should prompt Washington to realize that security must be common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable. No country can be safe by making others feel endangered. That is also true of technology and the economy, which the US has weaponized in a bid to hobble China's development.

It is encouraging that Sullivan said there are still many fields where the US can cooperate with China, as that is undoubtedly the case, and doing so would expand the common ground between the two sides, thus providing a more stable foundation for their relationship and a firmer platform on which to view the bigger picture and build better mutual understanding. That means relations should be based on an equal footing, and the handling of relevant issues should follow the principle of reciprocity.

The US thinks its sovereignty, territorial integrity, political system and development path, as well as the legitimate right of the US people to development, should and must be respected. But in return it should respect those of others, including China.

The US and China have to coexist on this planet, as Sullivan said. That means it behooves the two countries to find ways to make their relations sustainable. China is committed to enabling the Chinese people to live a better life and to making greater contributions to world peace and development and it has made it clear how it envisions doing so.

A key touchstone of the US' sincerity in seeking to mend ties with China will be to see whether Washington can therefore work with Beijing to open more channels, set up more platforms and create more opportunities to promote people-to-people exchanges to support those endeavors.