On June 6, 2016, Wang Zhigang, Party Group Secretary and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (“MOST”) attended the joint opening ceremony of the 8th Round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue and the 7th Round of the China-U.S. High-level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange(CPE) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. On June 7, Vice Minister Wang Zhigang attended the plenary meeting of the CPE co-chaired by Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the National Museum of China.

In accordance with the arrangements of the mechanism, Vice Minister Wang Zhigang published a signed article in People’s Daily during this year‘s CPE to present progress of cooperation in science, technology and innovation and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, and look into the prospects of future cooperation.

As a member agency of the mechanism, MOST has taken part in the successive consultations held since the initiation of the mechanism in 2010. During the current round of consultation, MOST and U.S. Department of State jointly held a sicence pillar meeting, which was attended by representatives from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation and other departments. The two sides reviewed progress made in people-to-people exchange in the science and technology field and reached agreement on topics of common interest and key work at the next step.

In addition, during the current round of consultation, MOST also organized two side events, namely the China-U.S. plus Clean Stove International Development Forum and China-U.S. Science Park Innovation Cooperation Forum, 29 item in 58 S&T areas have been listed in the fact sheet of this year’s CPE,which include young scientist exchanges, scientific and technological cooperation in wider fields, new models of scientific people to people exchange, and so on. It is hoped that through pragmatic cooperation, the science community could expand the people-to-people exchange and contribute to building a new model of major-country relationship between the two countries.