BEIJING - Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo said on Saturday that China and the United States should continue to firmly bear in mind the general direction of their bilateral relations and advance their bilateral ties further in the new era.

China-US relations have generally remained stable and made major positive progress over the past four years, and are currently at an important stage looking towards the future, Dai said in a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Both countries should continue to fulfill the consensus reached between their leaders and firmly steer to the general direction of jointly building a cooperation partnership based on mutual respect and benefit, as well as a new type of relationship between big powers, so as to help achieve new and greater progress in China-US relations in the new era.

Clinton said that the US is willing to continuously strengthen its exchanges, dialogue and cooperation with China and work together with China in building such a new type of relationship between big powers based on the considerable progress made in US-China relations in the past four years.