"What I want to emphasise, in particular, is that whatever happens, China will stay strongly committed to deepening its reform on all fronts while opening still wider to the outside world," the president said.

Xi said the steps taken to rescue the nation's stock market in the summer had "proved successful" while similar measures were also adopted in other mature foreign markets.

China, he added, had the capacity and was in the position to maintain "medium-high growth" in the years to come.

Beijing rolled out a series of unprecedented measures when its stock markets crashed in July. The steps, while aimed at stabilising the markets, raised concern over the leadership's ability to steward the slowing economy and prompted doubts over its resolve to carry on its pledge to let the market play a bigger role.

In the interview, Xi said an important goal for China's economic reform was to "enable the market to play the decisive role in resource allocation and make the government better play its role".

"That means we need to make good use of both the invisible hand and the visible hand," the president said.

Likening the Chinese economy to a large ship out at sea, Xi said: "Any ship, however large, may occasionally get unstable sailing on the high sea."

In Seattle, his first stop, Xi will meet technology executives as part of his public engagement with the business community. While China remains an important market for American technology companies, Beijing is also blamed for cyberattacks targeting American firms and government agencies.

In the face of cyberespionage accusations - a key bone of contention in Xi's Washington meetings - the president said China was also a victim of hacking.

Read more: Full coverage of Xi Jinping's US trip

"The Chinese government does not engage in theft of commercial secrets in any form, nor does it encourage or support Chinese companies to engage in such practices in any way," he said. The issue of cyberespionage is expected to be high on the agenda when Xi meets US President Barack Obama later this week.

Yesterday, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice issued a stern warning to Beijing, calling cyberespionage a critical factor in bilateral relations. "This isn't a mild irritation, it's an economic and national security concern to the United States," Rice said during remarks at George Washington University. "Cyber-enabled espionage that targets personal and corporate information for the economic gain of businesses undermines our long-term economic cooperation and it needs to stop."

In the interview, Xi also defended China's posturing in the South China Sea, saying the country's island reclamation projects were to "improve the working and living conditions of the Chinese personnel on the maritime features" and to "provide international public goods and services".

Washington has criticised China's island construction in the disputed area as a move that is destabilising the region, fearing Beijing will install military facilities on those reclaimed islands.

With a host of thorny issues on the agenda, many observers have said Xi's first state visit to the US will yield limited breakthroughs in bilateral ties.

In a commentary written for the , David Shambaugh, director of George Washington University's China Policy Programme, said the two sides came into the summit with divergent expectations, resulting in a "recipe for deepening mutual misperceptions and misunderstandings".

Chinese advance officials visiting Washington had reiterated to their US government counterparts "over and over" the imperatives of ensuring Xi's "security and dignity", according to Shambaugh.

"If the Americans are fixated about substance, the Chinese are obsessed about symbols," Shambaugh wrote.

"The question is: if the Americans give the Chinese the symbolism they seek, will the Chinese reciprocate with the substance the Americans seek?"