Joe Biden's visit is chance for US to start forging better ties with China

Much of the spotlight on US Vice-President Joe Biden's visit to Beijing this week has been shone on issues surrounding the new air defence identification zone. But at the core of the 5-1/2 hours spent in conversation with President Xi Jinping was a more pressing issue - formulating a path for the two countries to manage their differences and work together.

"We are at a moment, a window, as they say, of opportunity. How long it will remain open remains to be seen - where we can potentially establish a set of rules of the road that provide for mutual benefit and growth of both our countries and the region, that set down sort of the tracks for progress in the 21st century," Biden told an audience of business leaders in Beijing yesterday before travelling to South Korea. "And so the only path to realise this vision for the future is through tangible, practical co-operation and managing our differences effectively.

"We have not tried this before. We have not tried this before," he repeated. "This is going to be difficult."

Biden said if Beijing and Washington could get it right the outcome would be "profoundly positive".

Both sides now agree that they want to forge a new model for relationships between major countries. But the concept, first raised by Xi in his summit with US President Barack Obama in Sunnylands, California, last year, is still vague. What exactly that entails will depend on how adaptable leaders are and how well they can work around their differences while building a trusting relationship, experts say. But the range of issues addressed during Biden's unusually long meetings with Xi, they said, threw some light on how leaders of the two powers envision their future together.

A White House official with Biden said the men spent a good amount of time in their meetings talking about the overall bilateral relationship and its complexities. He said the two talked about "the need to build trust".