Beijing has yet to confirm whether President Hu Jintao will attend a nuclear security summit in Washington next month as two senior American diplomats prepare to leave China today after a fence-mending visit.
The decision will send out a strong signal about the direction the bilateral relationship is heading. Persuading Hu to attend the summit - to be chaired by US President Barack Obama - has been at the top of the agenda for US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and the National Security Council's Asian affairs director, Jeffrey Bader, since they arrived in Beijing on Tuesday.
Experts said Beijing leaders had four options: Hu could attend the summit and follow it with a state visit; he could just attend the summit and leave afterwards; Beijing could send a senior official to the summit; or it could simply refuse to take part. They said the last option was highly unlikely because it would seriously sour China's ties with Western powers.
The first option would indicate that the Sino-US relationship is fully back on track. Sending anyone less than Hu to the Washington summit, on the other hand, could affect the delicate bilateral relationship, already plagued by thorny issues ranging from Tibet and Taiwan to a huge trade imbalance.
'This [inviting Hu to the summit] would be an important part of their talks with Chinese officials,' said Yu Wanli, an assistant professor at Peking University's Centre for International and Strategic Studies. 'But as far as I know, China hasn't decided on whether it will attend [the summit] and who will go.'
Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University's school of international studies, said the political environment was not favourable for a state visit.
'It is likely that [Hu's state visit to the US] will be postponed,' he said.
