President Xi welcomes Obama to visit China for APEC summit

BEIJING, July 10 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday that he welcomes and expects talks with Barack Obama when the U.S. president visits China to attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in November.

Xi made the remarks while meeting with two delegations for the sixth China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) and the fifth China-U.S. High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) held in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday.

In his opening remarks, Xi praised the positive progress of the annual high-level meeting, urging the working groups of both sides to coordinate to implement the consensus of this round of S&ED and CPE.

Xi said the new model of China-U.S. relationship is drawn from the experience of bilateral ties over the past 35 years.

Xi said he and President Obama are determined to ensure healthy and stable growth of China-U.S. ties on a correct track.

"China is willing to make concerted efforts to this end," he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, for his part, described this round of dialogue as "excellent." He said Xi's strong speech opened the annual meeting and had raised the level of the dialogue.

He quoted Obama as saying the United States welcomes and hopes to see a "strong, prosperous and stable" China.

"We mean what we said," he added.

The S&ED was co-chaired by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi, as well as Kerry and U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. The CPE was hosted by Vice Premier Liu Yandong and Kerry.