Cyber, trade, relationship building among top issues at China-U.S. S&ED talks

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Cyber, trade and relationship building between the world's two biggest economies will top the agenda in the upcoming China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) talks, U.S. experts said.

"On the strategic side, I expect that there will be more discussion of the new type of major relationship," Bonnie Glaser, senior associate at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Xinhua.

"There will be a concerted effort to build on the Obama-Xi talks," she said, referring to last month's high profile summit in California between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama, which were aimed at shaping a broad framework on how to manage a new-type of relationship between major countries.

"China wants to try to reach common understanding on this concept," Glaser said.

The July 10-11 S&ED talks come after the controversy involving former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed massive U.S. global surveillance and spying operations and passed through Hong Kong after fleeing the United States.

But experts said the spat is likely to blow over, and will not overshadow this week's meetings.

"The U.S. and China are both interested in substantive discussions that advance cooperation, not finger pointing," Glaser said.

Yukon Huang, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Xinhua that concerns over trade and investment are likely to top the economic agenda of the annual meetings.

China will want to talk about barriers such as restrictions on the types of technology it can import from the United States, Huang said, such as technologies that Washington claims can be used for military purposes.

On trade, both sides want to avoid protectionist sentiments, and China wants to make sure the U.S. continues to be a fairly open trade regime that does not implement protectionist tariffs, Huang said.

The United States will want to talk about whether Chinese exporters and producers have unfair advantages in terms of subsidies or interest rates, he said.

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