partnership based on the respect and mutual benefit. i want to tell you the following. first, on the strategic track, secretary clinton and i focused on the agreement of the two leaders and exchanged views on how to deal with china u.s. cooperative partnership based on the mutual respect and the mutual benefit that we had in the practical exchange of views. >> our dialogue covered many issues including china's u.s. bilateral relations, major issues, international and regionally, and we had a group conversation. we agreed that we must act in accordance with the chinese u.s. joint statement to increase the strategic mutual trust and post exchanges at higher levels, have closer dialogue on international and regional issues and further increase the people to people exchange. we issued an outcome list of the strategic trust to cover the science technology, transport, and the climate change cooperation. i said we had a group conversation, and i did not mean that we agreed on each and every issue. however, after each round of dialogue, we successfully expanded and increased our mutual trust, and this has added to the confidence of developing our relations in the future. certainly most of us agree we must increase over strategic mutual trust and deepen our cooperation. we reaffirm that we welcome a strong and prosperous china that plays a greater role in the international affairs and it does not seek to contain china with respect to china's interest and both sides from the commitment the commitment to the role of the peaceful development to the united states interest. the china u.s. strategic dialogue is a very important outcome of the dialogue. we agreed to hold this dialogue within the framework of the strategic dialogue and held its first round of meetings this morning and the chinese dialogue will continue to be held in the future the new areas like the common interests bigger and more tasteful. certainly we agree that we will work together in the region so that we can better coordinate with each other and interact with each other. we have agreed that it's a broad enough to accommodate the interest of china and both the united states we must work together in this region work together with other countries in this region to uphold peace, stability and promote prosperity of the asia-pacific and achieve the common development in all countries in this region so that the pacific ocean will become a peaceful one. we agree we will setup a mechanism for the asia-pacific region. fourth, we both agreed that we must work globally and respond to the domestic challenges. there has been in the situation. for china and the united states it is important that we have more consultation, coordination in order to promote and safeguard peace, still the and prosperity of the world. i wish to tell the media that the strategic and economic dialogue inception has played a very important role in helping the mutual trust provision and promote the beneficial cooperation and i'm ready to work with the u.s. to further growth and make good use of the lilos mechanism so that it can better serve china, u.s. relations. how to make use of this mechanism i think we are open to suggestions and proposals from the frenzy of the media. to conclude the vice premier i would like to thank 63 clinton and geithner as well as colleagues from china and the u.s. for your hard work to ensure the success of this round of dialogue i wish to thank the u.s. side for your arrangement and thank you for the interest in this dialogue. i am looking forward to seeing you again in beijing next year and continue our dialogue. thank you. [applause] >> psychiatry clinton and geithner are here to respond to a few of your questions. first question goes to matt pennington of the associated press. [inaudible] the well will challenge and bring down the authoritarian government. and did you discuss in your discussion these issues with your chinese counterpart and how did they respond? >> first let me say that we did discuss on but even to occurring in the middle east and north africa we exchange impressions and views about how individual nations as well as the region is moving in the press for transition for changes, for political and economic reform. every nation and every region is different. i think it is very difficult to draw any overall conclusion in my discussions with the state councilor i pointed out that starting in 2002 there were a series of reports done by arab experts about the development of that region and what might have kept up with the rest of the world particularly asia. so there was a lot of exchange of ideas, but i don't think that you control any specific conclusions other than to say that the united states supports the aspirations that the people in the middle east and north africa have expressed for more freedom, for more opportunity, for a better future for themselves and their families, and we will continue to support the people of the region as they try to realize those aspirations during this transition period. >> the second question goes to [inaudible] >> i appreciate you giving me this opportunity. for the chinese side, the government employees standard sticky from policy and will continue to and as we all know, the real purpose of this dialogue or the purpose of any dialogue is to enhance mutual understanding and mutual trust. so, when this dialogue concluded today, could we say that the u.s. side now has a better understanding and better recognition of china's strategic intent thank you. >> thank you for the question, and i agree that the purpose of any dialogue is to enhance mutual understanding and mutual trust in the other. i think that we have made quite a bit of progress in the last three dialogues. this is a work in progress. i think that for both of our nation's with such different histories, cultures, experiences, development models, political systems, it is important that we continue intensive consultations, and as both of us have said, we do not expect to find agreement on every issue. we know that we approach some of the sensitive matters from a very different perspective than an hour chinese counterparts, but i do think it is fair to say and it's something 63 geithner said as well in his opening statement i do think we have a deeper understanding of the viewpoint of the other. i think we have had such an open dialogue on every issue that we have built trust because we are not keeping any issue under the table or off the agenda. we are talking about the hard issues, and we are developing these habits of cooperation across the government. in addition this is not just to task for government. we are placing great emphasis on people to people, business to business contact and experiences i was delighted at the lunch that secretary geithner and i hosted for a group of american and chinese business leaders that they had some of the same comments, even some of the same complaints about their own and other government interference with being able to maximize their business opportunities. so why do think we are reaching a much better understanding and i think that is one of the principal purposes of the dialogue. >> my third question goes to harold snyder, "washington post" >> said the trustees of a country is, a lot of the stuff of the economic issues seems to be pressing industry by industry market around the innovation issue and i'm wondering are you challenging with them the sort of core logic of the business innovation and if so what is the response on that are you battling it out policy by policy? >> we generally try not to do. sector by sector, business by business. our focus has been to try to look at the basic design of the policy across the economy and we're we see the potential risk that policy may have the effect including the innovators and foreign companies coming at a disadvantage and china to change those policies and try to pursue their objective of encouraging the developing economies through other means. the general is to try to come at the policy of the highest level and we think that has the most effect. if you look at china and the united states we have three different economic systems and the traditions approaching the economic policy and china does still have a largely state dominated economy and the government and much more active role in the direction of the economy, the finance is still fundamentally directed by the state, and china is at the early stages really even with all of the reforms the west three years making the transition to the economy where the best technology wins when the market and competition is the driving force now giving capital. they are changing and i think they recognize china will be strong for the future the have to increase the rules of the market and strength of the incentives and allowing more neutral competition and that is a fundamentally healthy recognition, and as i sit in my opening remarks you are seeing china move in that direction and the direction of policy is promising and we are very confident we are going to see substantial ongoing improvement in the opportunities that the american companies have in the chinese market. american companies operating in china and creating a building things in the united states. >> the last question is the 21st century business her gold. >> have a question for secretary geithner. [inaudible] and had dinner with chinese entrepreneurs and i know that in some of these so i mean the dialogue which the united states tries more equally to the development and how do you speak to schenectady good question and it's an important part of the conversation the last two days. let me make clear we welcome chinese investment in the united states and a very confident that if you look over the next several years you will see chinese investment in the united states continue to expand very, very rapidly. there will be good for the united states, good for china. of course that is driven by the desire of the companies to get more access to the technology and to try to expand opportunities in the market and again we welcome them. we have an open on discriminatory regime from outside the united states and we treat the company's likely to investment from any other country and we are going to continue to make sure that we preserve that open investment regime because it's important to the basic strength and dynamism of the united states. now, to be fair, we also discussed china's investment regime, the policy in place to screen and limit foreign investment in the united states and of course although we recognize china's interest in expanding opportunities in the market is worth recognizing that china's own investment regime is a much more restricted regime with a much more careful management limitations with foreign firms to invest and purchase the company's but that's changing, too and it's in the interest that change over time and i expect you will see us continue to look for concrete areas where we can reassure investors in both countries the are going to face more opportunities on the investment side within china and the united states. >> it is unfortunately all the time that we have this afternoon but we appreciate your participation. thank you. [inaudible conversations] communities along the mississippi river and its tributaries have seen record flooding in the past week to lead to a memphis saw the river crest and level just below the record set in 1937. for details on the federal gun of response, we talked to an official with the army corps of engineers. this is 40 minutes. >> we are back with teheran. she is a contingency operations stricter of the army corps of te corps ers here to to your questions and comments about the rising mississippi river, the yr rir. s that we are seeing. the latest we heard from the weather service is the er hassippi crested at around 48 feet. what is the situation on the ground right now? guest: i am with the u.s. army corps of engineers and homeland security, so that is looking at all of the disaster support throughout this country in the contingency support to the battlefield. so we're really busy right now. besides that, and i will talking about the flooding in the second, we have a lot of people that were impacted by the tornadoes that came through this of the few weeks ago. we have people on the ground that are working in alabama for debris and temporary housing. we have completed a temporary power mission and processed and sent those folks back home. we had a very wide scale water distribution center. we completed that over the weekend. we have a lot of the citizens that are trying to deal with the aftermath of the tornado for quite some time. let's talk about the flooding. this year has been an an ordinary year. the missouri river, and most recently the ohio, tennessee, mississippi. we have had in those rare verve valleys as much as six times the amount of precipitation in normally get at this time of year. the last couple of weeks with over 6% normal precipitation, there is a lot of water. all of these river systems are connected and work together, so we have a big system of reservoirs, lock and dams, levees, flood walls that we look at between us and other federal agencies, partners in the states. everyone working together to say what can we do to deal with the best we can this incredible amount of water that is coming through? last night i just got back from a couple days in the ohio river valley looking at what we're doing to help the local people in kentucky. we were over in illinois. it is just amazing the way these communities are all working together on these active efforts with the state and federal partners to deal with this the best they can. it's just really strikes me every time i am out and see what our communities do. to the we're hearing the news this morning that the water has crested. -- host: we are hearing the news this morning that the water has crested. what does that mean? guest: the crest means the highest stage that is predicted by the national weather service. it will take a while for it to go back down, because there is a lot of water. host: how long? guest: we do not know. it could be the next few weeks of a possibly into june before it starts to recede. the reason is the river is so full right now, and these backwaters that normally dream into the river, they have dreamed very slowly. but we are looking at probably going into june would still high water levels. the good news is the crest has passed memphis. host: our folks in the clear or are the folks downstream need to be concerned about what happens next? guest: the folks downstream are watching it very closely. the crest will still have to vicksburg.xper i looked at the prediction for this morning, and the crest in new orleans, that crest is expected on the 23rd of may at 19.5 feet, which is a pretty high crest for that area. it we look across the whole system cover we're seeing real low as we have not seen since the flood of 1927. in memphis the crest today is half a foot below the historic level. >> what are the worst-case scenarios as the water continues downstream? guest: there is a system along the main stem of the mississippi river. we have several opportunities to influence or to reduce the amount of flooding that can occur. the first of one of those is the old river structure that is always open. there is a control structure and an artillery structures. it is a flood way. we had to open that up last week to allow some relief to that system. the third one is the one that is outside new orleans between new orleans and baton rouge. that is putting fresh water into the salt water basin. we started opening that up yesterday morning. the last time we opened it was in 2008. normally we brought that up -- we opened up roughly every seven years. i just went to alaska and just went to washington, so i was down there the last time we opened it. host: when you open these up, what does that mean for the folks that live around them? guest: 41 a carry, the saarland's we own. there is no flooding the the cause to people by opening of bonnie carrie. -- for bonnie carrie. the next one we're looking at closely is organza. it is also a flood way. that is below that larouche. -- baton rouge. that is a correlation to go to rain. if you have a host of its richest, fishing camps, they may or may not be above the water. this would prevent baton rouge and new orleans from being flooded. this is a flood plain. the last time we opened up organza was in 1973. we do not use a very often. host: when will that decision be made? guest: general walsh is the commander on the ground. he is gathering all of the engineering data and talking with our folks in with the governor and so forth, and based on the engineering data and the river flows, he will make the decision. he has not made the decision yet. what we're doing is letting people know this could happen. we have put out inundation maps. besides from organza, there are areas outside the area that will be flooded anyway. we want to let them know they could have a lot of water. host: can people follow your decision making on the facebook page? guest: yes. it is being kept up-to-date. you can get real time reports of what is going on, the decision making, as it is happening, maps, projections. i cannot emphasize enough that people need to listen to local officials. if they give evacuation orders, people need to follow it. >> the evaation oegive .. states, by the locals. they are the ones that make the decisions. >> operation watershed 2011. it is linked on our website. we have the director of contingency operations for the army corps. we're talking about their response to the mississippi floods. we are dividing the phone lines east-central in mount pacific. and we of a special line for those impacted by the floods. a lain in tacoma, washington. -- elaine in >> caller: i have a couple quick comments. i have to say this is what they did to us during hurricane cay tree that. the army corp.s destroyed the levy in the same ways they are doing now, and we see what happen with that when they pick winners and losers, i don't support that. it's malicious on the people that would be getting the short end of the stick. that's my first comment, and my second comment is i permly think that this is the hand of god at work. i mean, we're having record floods. look at the tornado that went through alabama. i mean, you know, this is -- this is ridiculous. i think people need to look at that. >> host: all right. what about the decision to blow up levies? there was resistance in missouri when you blew up a levy last monday. what goes into that decision and why do you do it? >> guest: it's so hard to make decisions like that, and that is a floodway we actually built in the early 1930s and had sections of the levy designed if we had to, to be removed. there's piping through the levies where we pumped liquid explosives in to remove those sections of the levy. we have purchased eastman's for 70 years, knowing at one time we could have to remove parts of the levy to allow that floodway to be flooded. there were 130,000 acres, mostly agriculture area that's flooded, but in doing that, there's 2.5 million angers that -- acres that were not. it's about relieving the system. >> host: what happens to the land flooded? do those folks get compensated? >> guest: i'm an engineer. there's legalities, what more can people do? the federal government is looking at that to say what type of compensation would be available. >> host: under what law is the army corp. authorized to blow up a levy? >> guest: what we're doing is operating the floodway as designed. it's a flood project and it's no coincidence there's miles of pipe through the levy to have a controlled operation. we physically removed part of that levy. it was a designed project. it's a flood way