BEIJING (Dow Jones)--China’s finance minister said Sunday that China and the United States must focus on global economic stability and recovery, which is threatened by the European sovereign-debt crisis. The comments, posted on the website of Ministry of Finance and originally published by the Washington Post Sunday, come one day ahead of the two-day U.S.-China strategic and economic dialogue in Beijing. Finance Minister Xie Xuren said China and the U.S. should work with the international community to maintain stability, strengthen coordination on global economic policies and consolidate the recovery’s momentum. The comments reiterated China’s attitude to the impact imposed by the European sovereign-debt crisis. China’s Assistant Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said Thursday that the debt crisis in Europe is a challenge for the stability of the global financial markets. It bears on the progress of the world’s economic recovery and it should be a reminder that governments must maintain the stability and responsiveness of their macroeconomic policies. Zhu also urged that major reserve-currency-issuing countries should undertake their due responsibilities and work to maintain the stability of exchange rates among major currencies so as to create a favorable environment for world economic recovery, indicating that China will wait to see more economic clarity in Europe before moving on its own currency. Xie also said China and the U.S. are in different stages of development, which will last for a long time. China and the U.S. should seize the opportunities to complement each other’s advantages through exchange. “China’s exports to the United States are mainly medium- and low-end products. The U.S. industrial advantage lies in high-end manufacturing products that are greatly needed in the Chinese market,” he said. “If the United States can loosen its export controls on civilian high-tech products to China, its export competitiveness can be further improved. This would also help it balance trade with China.” He pointed out the two countries should take a holistic view of the interdependence of their interests. While a large portion of exports from American companies with direct investment in China has turned into China’s trade surplus with the United States, he said, a significant part of the trade surplus has become its investment in Treasury bonds and other dollar assets. This is shoring up the long-term stability of the U.S. economy, he said.