Former U.S. treasury secretary says keeping U.S.-China competition healthy 'vitally important'

Though the United States and China have different economic and political systems, keeping their competition healthy, and not pernicious, is "vitally important," former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said.

"As the two largest global economies, it is in the interest of Americans, Chinese and the world that the U.S. and China find a way to reboot economic growth," Paulson said in an opinion piece published on the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Domestically, U.S. workers and farmers, he noted, "have the potential to benefit to a much greater extent from a more balanced relationship with the world's fastest-growing major economy."

Internationally, "until the U.S. and China can establish where they can cooperate and where they will compete, there will be chaos, which limits global economic growth and threatens peace," Paulson said.

Also, "while protecting national security is essential, it must not undermine U.S. competitiveness in the process," he warned.

For instance, preventing legitimate Chinese companies from U.S. capital-market listings on "vague national-security grounds" only makes London, Hong Kong or Tokyo more attractive, the former treasury secretary added.

"The key is to get strategic competition with China right," as "confrontation without effective competition" is "in no one's interest," he said.