Chinese officials have emphasized what they see as common concerns while acknowledging the complexity of the relationship.

"When the relationship is strained, we need to bear in mind the bigger picture and not allow any individual issue to disrupt our overall cooperation," Cui said in a speech on Friday.

And for Chinese Ambassador to the US Zhang Yesui, it is not strange to see China and the US hold different views on some issues due to the different political systems, culture, history and social development.

"The key is to respect and take care of each other's core interests and major concerns, and we must solve the problems through dialogue and consultation on an equal footing."

Analysts believe it is a state visit meant to reset relations after a rocky year, and moreover it might help lay the foundations for bilateral ties in a transformational era in the near future.

Others also hold that the visit will benefit regional and international relations on the whole.

China and the US have experienced an eventful 2010, with an array of issues affecting bilateral ties, including US arms sales to Taiwan at the beginning of the year and the continuous pressure from the US on China's trade and currency rate.

US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao pose for a photo at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC in April 2010. FILE PHOTO / AFP

"It is absolutely critical for the two sides to be setting a tone that says 'hang on a second, we are committed to an effective, positive relationship'," Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Charles Freeman, a former trade negotiator in the George W. Bush administration, told The Associated Press.

According to Jin Canrong, deputy director of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, it is unrealistic to expect that a single visit by a leader will solve all major problems between the two countries, yet more communication between the two sides will certainly help to improve mutual trust.

According to Jin, the old issues between the two countries, including Taiwan and Tibet, will continue to feature in bilateral ties, while some new issues will keep emerging, including economic competition and friction in military ties.

However, "as it is unlikely that the US will manage to confront or contain China, the only way left is to try to get China engaged in its global agenda", Jin said.

"The two will have a functional partnership by cooperating on an issue-by-issue base. Yet to achieve this, they need a mechanism to deal with their differences."

According to Wang Fan from China Foreign Affairs University, the two countries are both at a transformational stage, and, given China's growing role in global affairs, the two sides need to rebalance their relationship

According to Wang, how the two countries manage to influence and change each other in the future will influence their policies toward each other.

"There has been not so much strategic misunderstanding by the US as some assume. Instead, the US is caught in several strategic choices as it is not sure of where a growing China is heading. And China needs to work harder to dispel suspicion on the US side and increase mutual trust," Wang said.

In a signed article in The New York Times, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as former US president Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, said that Hu's visit to Washington will be the most important top-level encounter between the US and China since Deng Xiaoping's historic trip more than 30 years ago.

"It should therefore yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem. It should aim for a definition of the relationship between the two countries that does justice to the global promise of constructive cooperation between them," he wrote.

In a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger also proposed establishing "permanent consultative institutions" between the two countries. "If we have a permanent contact, then even (when) there is an occasion of difficulty, it will fit into a continuing dialogue, and I expect this to be a result of this visit," Kissinger said.

Fu Mengzi, a researcher with the Beijing-based China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said China-US cooperation will benefit not only both countries but also the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.

That is due to the increasing interdependency between countries and regions in this era of globalization, he said.

Rana Mitter, a professor with the Institute for Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford, said the Hu-Obama meeting will "need to address the fact that both countries have a duty to the wider global community to solve problems that go beyond the nation-state".

Europe will be pleased that the US and China are holding such a high-level meeting. Bad relations between the US and China are not good for Europe, according to Mitter. But Europe and its large economies, such as the United Kingdom, will also want to remind China that they remain major trading partners and players in the international community, Mitter said.

Previous meetings:

This is Chinese President Hu Jintao's first state visit to the United States since Barack Obama took office as US president two years ago, but the pair have met seven previous times:

• April 1, 2009: G-20 Summit in London

• Sept 22, 2009: UN Climate Change Summit in New York

• Nov 17, 2009: US President Barack Obama's visit to Beijing

• April 13, 2010: Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC

• June 26, 2010: G-20 Summit in Toronto

• Nov 11, 2010: G-20 Summit in Seoul

• Nov 13, 2010: APEC Summit in Yokohama

(China Daily January 18, 2011)