BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie has urged the United States to engage more with Asia and says China should be included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Mr Mackenzie told the Asia Society in New York that the social and economic forces at work across Asia were unstoppable.
The growth in Asia's middle class will generate a boom in the services industry, and as a world leader in the export of services, the US would be ideally placed to capture new markets and create new jobs.
"Now is the time for the US to lean in to Asia rather than lean away," Mr Mackenzie said in a speech delivered overnight.
He said China's economy would continue to develop at an envious pace, not just growing physical trade but also in knowledge.
China's research and development expenditure had already outstripped that of the European Union and would match US levels within four years.
Mr Mackenzie said China had been using trade to make a "new China", which had helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
Trade had not only helped China, he said, but would also do the same for India and Indonesia.
Mr Mackenzie said the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries that includes the US and Australia but not China - could be a means to promote more free trade champions, especially developing nations.
"While China is not currently a party to the TPP, I would advocate for their inclusion in future iterations," Mr Mackenzie said.
He said that, if the US and China were connected through the TPP, the world would be drawn together and stabilised.
