When the National Committee on United States-China Relations was set up 46 years ago to encourage mutual understanding and cooperation, the two big nations hadn't yet established diplomatic ties.

In 1966, 17 years after its founding, the People's Republic of China was still commonly referred to in the US as "Red China", while Chinese denounced "American imperialists".

But a group of visionary, passionate people, including the current NCUSCR vice-president, Jan Berris, bucked prevailing sentiments and committed themselves to helping write a new chapter in the US-China relationship.

Against the backdrop of "ping-pong diplomacy" in 1971, the just-formed NCUSCR helped break the bilateral logjam.

Steve Orlins, its president, reflected on the history of the committee and the bilateral bond it helped formalize just a year later, in 1972. The mutual challenges facing China and the United States today, while different and more complex, are no less daunting than those that accompanied the advent of diplomatic relations 40 years ago.

"At the gala one year ago, I read a headline from that morning's Wall Street Journal. It said, 'One Loser in Presidential Polling: China'. Twelve months later, as we prepare for the election (in November), the story remains unchanged," Orlins said Monday night at the annual NCUSCR gala, at New York's Plaza Hotel.

"This morning's headlines remind us how much work must be done on both sides. 'Distrust,' 'downturn', 'cheater' and 'thief' are some terms that have come to dominate our political discussion about China," Orlins said.

He appeared to be referring to China-bashing rhetoric in the US presidential race and a House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report released Monday on the national-security threat posed by Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp.

Those epithets have been seized on by those who mischaracterize the US-Chinese relationship and the countries' shared interests, suggesting that confrontation should supplant efforts at cooperation. Orlins, however, said he rejected such efforts.

"I know by showing your support for this organization and its mission, you don't either," he told an audience of 500, including many longtime advocates of a strong relationship between China and the US.

Orlins believes the US presidential election and China's 18th Party Congress, which will take place only two days apart in early November, will present the leaders of each country a unique opportunity to reset the bilateral relationship, by focusing on solutions rather than the legacy of 20th-century conflict.

"We must ask our leaders to abandon the campaign rhetoric and focus instead on the future of shared prosperity and cooperation," said Orlins, the NCUSCR president since 2005.

He told the fable of the Frog in the Well, written by Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi over 2,000 years ago: The frog believes his home at the bottom of a well is paradise. Seeing only a patch of blue sky, he isn't aware of the wider world outside.

"If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view," said Orlins. "Our job at the National Committee for the last 46 years is really quite simple. Our mission is to get us to the top of the well, so we can see the entire sky, so the people on both sides of the Pacific can realize the potential in the US-China relations," he said.

"The most powerful tool we have is education and educate we must," he said.