US Vice-President Joe Biden left China for coal-rich Mongolia yesterday after reassuring senior Chinese leaders about the vitality of the US economy despite the debt crisis, and getting to know his counterpart Xi Jinping, widely expected to become China's president in 2013.
Biden flew out from Chengdu yesterday morning, a day after he delivered a speech on Sino-US ties at Sichuan University and visited Dujiangyan, hit by the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.
His tour was overshadowed by suggestions that America's global influence was declining and fears about the rise of China.
He repeatedly stressed that the US was not waning as a global power, while Chinese leaders gave the American economy the thumbs up and said they were confident it would meet its obligations with regard to its government debt.
Jia Qingguo, associate dean of Peking University's international studies school and one of five academics who met Biden on Saturday, said that allaying fears was the key achievement of the visit because it showed that both sides were determined to create a positive atmosphere for Sino-US ties.
'It is rare and commendable for Biden to say in public that the US welcomes the rise of China,' he said.