China and the United States should serve as a boost for each other's development rather than a hindrance, President Xi Jinping has said, expressing Beijing's willingness to work with Washington as a partner and friend.

The success of one country is an opportunity for the other, Xi said in a congratulatory message sent on Tuesday to the annual gala dinner of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

Xi has been sending congratulatory messages to the organization's annual gala dinner for several years. In November last year, Xi attended a dinner reception hosted by the committee and the US-China Business Council following his meeting with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco.

In the letter, Xi expressed his appreciation for the committee's unremitting efforts to promote exchanges and cooperation between the two countries in various fields, and congratulated the esteemed honoree of this year's gala, William E. Ford, chairman and CEO of General Atlantic, a global growth equity company.

Xi said he hopes that the committee and friends from all walks of life will continue to care about and support China-US relations, and actively participate in and benefit from China's modernization.

He emphasized that China-US ties are one of the world's most important bilateral relationships, which bear on the well-being of the two peoples and the future of mankind.

China has always handled the bilateral relationship on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, he said.

Xi said that China will enhance institutional openness, continue to build a world-class international business environment and leverage the advantage of its enormous market and domestic demand potential to bring about more opportunities for China-US cooperation.

He called on the two sides to carry out more visits and exchanges, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation to bring more benefits to the two peoples, and inject more stability and positive energy into the world.

On the same day, US President Biden also sent a congratulatory message to the event.

At the dinner, Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng said that for China and the US, "turning back on each other is not an option, and trying to remodel or take down one another is unrealistic".

A total of 1,920 US companies were set up in China last year, and 80 percent of US businesses in China plan to reinvest profits generated there this year, according to Xie.

All of this shows that businesses from the US are "voting with their feet", he said, adding that their choice is not to distance themselves from China, but to invest more deeply in it.

The gala took place as a pair of giant pandas, Bao Li and Qing Bao, arrived in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, fulfilling a promise made by Xi last November in San Francisco, where he announced China's readiness to continue its cooperation with the US on panda conservation to further deepen friendly ties between the two peoples.

Regarding Xi's letter, Jeffrey Greene, chairman of the Sino-American Aviation Heritage Foundation, told China Daily that President Xi emphasizes the importance of direct communication between China and the US.

President Xi is taking a very pragmatic approach in terms of encouraging cooperation, Greene said, adding that "although there are challenges, we need to reach out to our friends and business partners to work together, to face challenges and build bridges".

Peter Reisman, managing director and chief communications officer of Bank of China USA, said: "Regardless of the difficulties that we have in the relationship between the US and China, now we have to buckle down and work toward better communication, because, at the end of the day, there's nothing more important than a robust and deep US-China relationship.

"And that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything, but it does mean that we have to learn how to communicate and work together on the areas that we can."

Established in 1966, the committee is a nonprofit educational organization that encourages understanding of China and the US among citizens of both countries.

It promotes understanding and cooperation between China and the US in the belief that sound and productive Sino-US relations serve vital American and world interests.