A photo exhibition on China-US relations opened at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library near Los Angles on Wednesday, with officials emphasizing that the ties between the two countries have become one of the most important bilateral relations in the world.

The exhibition, titled "Looking Back After 30 Years," was jointly launched by the Nixon Library and the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries with support from the China Photo Service, to mark the 30th anniversary of China-US diplomatic relations.

The three-day exhibition near Los Angles is part of a one-year tour program in both the United States and China for 2009.

Hundreds of photos on display at the four-part exhibition focus on the friendship between leaders and peoples of the two countries, as well as economic exchanges especially after the establishment of China-US diplomatic relations on Jan. 1, 1979.

"The China-US relationship has become the most dynamic and important bilateral relationship in the world," President of the China-US People's Friendship Association Xu Kuangdi said on Wednesday at the opening ceremony.

Xu, a renowned metallurgist and former mayor of Shanghai, said the course of China-US relations in the past 30 years showed that to forge closer ties with China has become a bipartisan consensus in the United States.

He also expressed his congratulations on the assumption of office by the 44th US President Barack Obama.

The exhibition premiered in Beijing earlier this month and there are plans to hold it in other major Chinese cities like Shanghai and Wuhan, said Madam Li Xiaolin, vice-president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

It will also be held in Washington, D.C. in March.

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2009)