WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that the United States and China have built trust and have a "deeper understanding" of the viewpoint of the other through the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED).

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"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're not keeping any issue under the table or off the agenda," the top US envoy said in response to a question by Xinhua at a press conference held right after the conclusion of the third-round of S&ED in Washington.

She said that the purpose of any dialogue is to enhance mutual understanding and mutual trust in the other. "I think we've made quite a bit of progress in the last three dialogues. This is a work in progress," she added. "I think that for both of our nations, with such different histories, cultures, experiences, development models, political systems, it is important that we continue intensive consultations."

The two-day dialogue was co-chaired by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Hillary Clinton and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"And as both of us have said, we do not expect to find agreement on every issue. We know that we approach some of these sensitive matters from a very different perspective than our Chinese counterparts," Clinton said at her joint press conference with Geithner. "We are talking about the hard issues, and we're developing these habits of cooperation across our government."

"In addition, this is not just a task for governments. We are placing great emphasis on our people-to-people, our business-to- business contacts and experiences," she added.

In April 2009, Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to establish the mechanism of S&ED during their first meeting in London on the sidelines of the G20 financial summit.

The first round of the dialogue was held in Washington in July 2009, while the second round was held in Beijing in May 2010.