With China and the United States marking the 30th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations, Chinese Ambassador Wu Jianmin expressed optimism during a recent visit to Rhode Island. A senior member of China’s Foreign Policy Advisory Committee was here to celebrate the U.S.-China Institute at Bryant University, which promotes the study of Chinese culture.

Ambassador Wu said that the distance that Chinese/U.S. relations have advanced since his posting to the United Nations as part of the first People’s Republic of China delegation, in 1971, can hardly be exaggerated. “Back then, America was our enemy. You now have President Obama, who campaigned on the theme of change. From my perspective, change is all I’ve seen.”

The administration of President Jimmy Carter recognized the PRC and dropped diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1979.

“Even 15 years ago if you walked through almost any American store, you would have found nothing made in China. Now, almost everything is. More than 1.2 million Chinese have come to the United States to study, including 100,000 students here now,” said the ambassador.

Still, “We are very different countries. And we have differences on many issues,” Mr. Wu said, rattling off several flare-ups, such as the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by U.S. planes in 1999 and the collision of a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane and a Chinese fighter in 2001.

“But we are connected in so many ways in the global economy. It’s very hard to see that relationship not becoming even broader in the years ahead.”

Meanwhile, globalization has made a U.S. recession into a huge worldwide economic downturn, sparing almost no one. In China, growth is expected to continue dropping sharply in the months ahead. “The global crisis requires a global solution. We need cooperation, not confrontation. President Hu Jintao has said that there are three ‘Nos’: No lecturing; no finger-pointing and no America-bashing.”

The recession may spark a trade war; indeed, there have been hints that the Obama administration may resort to protectionism to try to protect jobs.

Still, Ambassador Wu said, straitened circumstances may produce positive results, to wit: “The economic crisis will bring Taiwan and China together.” There are already numerous economic links across the strait, and recently direct flights began between Taiwan and several mainland cities, a reward to the island for rejecting independence from the mainland in its presidential election last year.

“President Hu has also said that Chinese will not fight Chinese,” even though China for years has strongly implied that war would result from Taiwan’s declaring independence.

The fact is that Taiwan is rich, and the mainland needs continued investment to employ its expanding labor pool. And yet over the past decade, China has been installing missile sites on its coast opposite Taiwan. Wu Jianmin said that the missiles “are there to repel foreigners, but that possibility is becoming more remote. We could remove them.”

That would constitute a signal improvement in global security. President Obama, for his part, would do well to direct Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask China to drop its opposition to Taiwanese membership in such international bodies as the World Health Organization.

There are numerous reasons, but the most pressing one is that Taiwan is on the front line in the containment of viruses coming out of Asia. China’s opposition to including Taiwan the World Health Organization poses a peril not just to it but to the rest of the world.