Before landing in Beijing on Wednesday to serve as the new United States ambassador to China, Terry Branstad posted a video online about his top priorities, which include "resolving" the trade imbalance between China and the US, and expanding people-to-people exchanges.

As the world's largest and second-largest economies, the US and China have accounted for about half of the world's total growth in the past decade. And Sino-US trade has had far-reaching impacts on the world market and global growth outlook.

As such, China and the US need to clear doubts about the trade imbalance, and build mutual trust. As for bilateral trade, it would be beneficial for both sides if the US could make good the trade deficit. The two economies are too important for each other to fail, and a sound Chinese economy is vital to the US' economic health, and vice-versa.