SHANGHAI, April 5 (UPI) -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in China Thursday the rise of the Asian giant should not be seen as detrimental to the United States.
Speaking to students of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, Kissinger stressed the importance of cooperation between the two nations, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"It is not a zero-sum game," he said. "Both countries will develop through cooperation."
Kissinger cited new sources of energy as an area where the two countries can cooperate, warning that supplies of conventional energy are dwindling as the world's appetite for it increases.
"The two countries need to cooperate to look for new sources of energy for the sake of everyone," he said. "There would be no winner if the two countries got into a conflict."
Kissinger acknowledged cultural and historical differences between the two countries.
"China had existed for thousands of years before the independence of the United States," he said. "China doesn't need America's permission to develop ... What we can do is to learn more about each other's history, culture and reality."
