Xi's U.S. tour to set tone for bilateral ties: Chinese experts

President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States coincides with the reconstruction of bilateral ties and it will be an important forum to discuss the future path of relations, according to Chinese experts on Wednesday.

The Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that Xi will pay his first state visit to the U.S. from Sept. 22 to 25.

"The visit will be a milestone of great significance," said Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), at the Foreign Ministry's 14th Lanting Forum.

He said this visit will be on par with one made by late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979, who showed China's resolve to open the nation to the world shortly after the two countries established formal diplomatic ties.

Su expects Xi's visit to set the tone for the future direction of the relations between the two major countries.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the forum that both sides will use the opportunity to reaffirm their respective development direction and strategic intentions, their growing common interests and their common responsibility for peace, stability and development.

Wang Yizhou, a Peking University professor, said China-U.S. relations were "in a state of reconstruction."

The United States' engagement with China over 40 yeas ago was based on the common threat the two sides were facing -- the Soviet Union, and at that time China was weak, Wang noted.

This situation, however, has now changed. China and the United States have no common threat, instead they face different challenges and differences.

"The current scenario has no precedent, so both countries must revisit their relations," Wang added.

Despite ever-growing economic ties, China and the United States have differences in a series of issues concerning cyberspace security, the South China Seas and others.

"China-U.S. relations are at a turning point," said Yuan Peng, deputy president of China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, who added that due to a change in balance of power between the two countries, and the profound transformation of the world, it is not unusual that some negative views about China-U.S. relations have emerged.

Xi's visit can bring positive elements together with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama, and in addition, Xi can explain China's new round of reform in a bid to strengthen mutual understanding, Yuan said.

Ruan Zongze, executive deputy of CIIS, said Xi's U.S. tour during the period of reconstruction of the bilateral ties will be important over the next years.

"It is a historical period of mutual construction, which means that China is no longer has a passive role in bilateral ties, as it has put forward concepts and ideas of its view of the future," Ruan said, referring to the new relationship between the great powers.

Ruan added that the U.S. should take a positive attitude toward the rise of China, because China's development will brings bigger opportunity for China-U.S. cooperation. Endi