经济联系有利于中美

Since China and the US established diplomatic relations in 1979, the two countries have witnessed a great development in bilateral trade, investment, education as well as people-to-people exchanges. Let's look at their ever-evolving relationship in figures.

Relations between China and the United States normalized in 1972 following Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing.

The accumulation of bilateral trade was $10 million then or the equivalent of six tons of gold based on the exchange rate at the time.

In 1979, the two sides officially established diplomatic relations, and bilateral trade volume increased to $2.45 billion which converted into 226 tons of gold.

But today, their bilateral trade volume has reached more than $500 billion or 12,000 tons of gold.

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, American investment in China has amounted to more than $75 billion.

A total investment of about $ 38.5 billion has been made by Chinese firms in the US market, covering 43 of the 50 states.

In 1979, about 79,000 US citizens visited China, the population of a small US city. Today that number has surged to more than 2 million, or about the population of Houston, Texas.

There are about 270,000 Chinese students in the US now, while China is hosting 20 thousand American students.

And, more than 10,000 Chinese and American nationals fly across the Pacific on a daily basis.