Xi and Obama urged to 'reset' Sino-US relations
Former US treasury secretary Henry Paulson says Xi and Obama should focus on mutual economic benefits during talks
President Xi Jinping and American counterpart Barack Obama should use their low-key meeting in California to "reset" Sino-US relations and focus on mutual economic benefits, former US treasury secretary Henry Paulson said at the 12th Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu , Sichuan , yesterday.
Paulson, a former head of Goldman Sachs, described Xi as having a "different style and different tone" to his predecessors.
Xi landed in the US yesterday and will spend two days with Obama at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California.
The setting, rare in the history of Sino-US relations, has attracted global attention from politicians and business leaders keen to discover clues about the development of political and economic ties between the world's two biggest economies.
"I think this meeting is very, very important," Paulson said. "What they need to do is to build the relationship, trust themselves and reach consensus. It's very clear we need to reset the relations between the US and China. It's now the most important bilateral relationship in the world.
"The cornerstone [of Sino-US relations] is the economic relationship. The top [leaders] can set the tone and I am hoping one of the things that will come out immediately is that their economic negotiators [can say] 'let's get some important things done'."