For a long list of reasons - from Tibet to Taiwan to trade - this promises to be a testy year for Sino-US relations.
It is clear one topic of dispute will be the recurring one of American exports of advanced technology to Beijing. A congressional study just last week called for tighter controls, including on supercomputers.
Those who favour new restrictions argue that the United States should not sell China equipment of potential military value while their long-term security relations remain so ill-defined and while human rights disputes persist.
It does not help that some Americans who want tougher rules also hope to turn China policy into a political weapon for beating President Bill Clinton, whom they dislike.
Among other things, the congressional study, drafted by a special House committee on high-technology trade with China, calls for restrictions on supercomputer sales, tighter security at US nuclear weapons laboratories so Chinese spies cannot steal secrets and new licensing procedures for exporting technology with military applications, such as encryption equipment.
But little of this is new. Quarrels about hi-tech exports to present or potential adversaries are an old issue in American politics. And if the US Government has a special legacy of trouble regarding China, it could, at least in part, be one of its own making.
Thanks to some recently declassified American documents, details of a prior computer sale to Beijing are now on public record.