SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United States should engage more with China when dealing with bilateral relations and collaborate more with it, Ken Wilcox, chair of the Asia Society Northern California (ASNC), said here Wednesday.

In concluding remarks of the ASNC's day-long panel discussions on the future of China and the United States, Wilcox said he did not see that anybody in the debates was really in favor of the decoupling of the two most important countries in the world.

A group of Chinese and U.S. policy makers, scholars, business leaders and industry experts explored the future of China-U.S. relations from various perspectives, including the overall development of their ties, competition in the auto industry, artificial intelligence, intellectual property rights protection, market access and policy-making.

The discussions came on the exact day when China and the United States formally signed the phase-one economic and trade agreement in the White House, namely earlier on Wednesday.

Wilcox said the United States should work with China to maintain international order and laws, instead of trying to contain China's development.

"We should not be in any way behaving in a way that can be construed as trying to keep China down," said Wilcox, urging the United Sates to stay open-minded when it comes to technological cooperation with other countries.

"We should keep our borders open, and there is more risk in isolating ourselves from scientific advancement," he added.

He called on Washington to focus on collaboration with other countries in environmental matters, climate change, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.

"Artificial intelligence is not a race. There's more to be gained through collaboration than through competition," he said. "Technology crosses borders."

Other panelists shared similar opinions on China-U.S. relations and expressed optimism about the future.

"I'm an optimist, (and) both political systems will have to come to their senses and realize that in some level we're going to have to muddle through," said Anja Manuel, co-founder of the consultancy RiceHadleyGates LLC based in Silicon Valley and Washington D.C.

She said there are "big, pressing global problems" that call for cooperation between China and the United States, and "the number one of them is climate change that we cannot solve without the help" of each other.

Mark Cohen, director and senior fellow of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, told Xinhua that the phase-one agreement between China and the United States is a positive development.

It's "extremely important" for both China and the United States to reinstitute their cooperative mechanisms following the signing of the phase-one deal, he said.