Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump met on Saturday noon for talks aimed at charting the course for bilateral ties in the next stage.

The much anticipated meeting took place on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in the Japanese city of Osaka.

At the beginning of their meeting, Xi recalled the start of "ping-pong diplomacy" in 1971 in Nagoya, Japan, where Chinese and U.S. players had friendly interactions at the 31st World Table Tennis Championships.

Eight years after that, China and the United States established diplomatic relations in 1979, Xi said.

Despite the great changes that have taken place in the international situation and China-U.S. relations during the past 40 years, "one basic fact remains unchanged: China and the United States both benefit from cooperation and lose in confrontation," Xi said. "Cooperation and dialogue are better than friction and confrontation."

Noting that he and Trump have maintained frequent telephone and mail contact recently, Xi said he is prepared to exchange views with the U.S. president on fundamental issues concerning the development of China-U.S. ties, so as to "set a direction for our relationship in a period to come and to advance the China-U.S. relationship based on coordination, cooperation and stability."

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