Visiting U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary had a roundtable discussion with Shanghai citizens on June 30.

In the discussion themed "shaping China for the 21st century," the Clintons inquired about changes in all aspects of China's society in the past two decades through talks with people from the legal, educational, academic, cultural and art and religious circles of the municipality.

President Clinton said that the discussion will help him and the American people to better understand the changes that are going on in China.

Answering questions from the Clintons, the Shanghai citizens attending the discussion briefed them about changes that had taken place in their respective working units and their own personal lives over the past two decades.

They said that in these years, China has seen rapid economic growth and continuous improvement of the living standards of the people. They said that China has kept opening to the rest of the world, with rapid economic growth and continued improvement in the people's living standards. They expressed the hope that China and the U.S. and their people will further increase contact and exchanges and that the U.S. will play an active role in China's modernization drive.

Answering questions about U.S.-China cooperation in science and technology, Clinton said that this area was probably the most successful part of the U.S.-China cooperation in the past few years, adding that scientists of the two countries have achieved significant results in their cooperation in such fields as medical science and earthquake forecasting.

"I think we have to do more of that," he said.

On the issue of U.S. restriction on technology export to China, Clinton said that the United States and China have been implementing an agreement on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

"I personally believe that the most important cooperation of science and technology between the United States and China should be on the energy side.

"I already have spoken to President Jiang Zemin that the focus of our scientific and technological cooperation in the future should be on the relations between energy utilization and environment protection because this is the biggest challenge that both countries will face," he said.

"We are working to resolve the issue of transferring technologies involving the so-called national security," he noted.

He said that since the same problem does not exist in the aspect of transferring technologies of energy and environmental protection to China, the U.S. will export more of these technologies to China.