US President Barack Obama arrived in Beijing Monday to attend the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting as well as pay a state visit to China. This is the second time that Obama has come to China in five years. A scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping has drawn wide attention both at home and abroad.

During their meeting at the Sunnylands Estate in California in June last year, Xi proposed that the two countries work to build a "new type of great power relationship," a fresh proposal for the relationship between an existing power and an emerging one.

China-US ties are distinct in history. There has never been an encounter of such two powers that both possess nuclear weapons, and pursue both cooperation and competition, in an era of globalization and high interdependence.

But over the past year, Washington has been reluctant to respond to this proposal, as fundamentally it thinks China is using the concept to seek a greater share of power in the Asia-Pacific region.

Despite wide recognition of US decline, the country remains confident enough in its strength and doesn't consider China to be an equal in a way that may entail respect for China's core interests. However, it needs China's cooperation on a host of practical issues such as climate change and counterterrorism, which are set to come up during the two leaders' meeting. The US is seeking to balance the conflicts.

Moreover, the framework set by the proposal for China-US relations doesn't fit the Western style of thinking, and Washington wants a more specific agenda about its implementation to help reduce their doubts and to better understand the concept.

The strategic mistrust between China and the US comes out of structural conflicts between an existing power and a rising one.

This is inevitable. It can be allayed and managed to some extent through meetings and dialogues between the two sides, but is unlikely to be completely addressed.

However, a meeting between Xi and Obama can play an important role in preparing the two sides for crisis prevention and management of any possible emergencies. This is necessary for Sino-US relations.

Ahead of Obama's visit, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the relationship between China and the US is "the most consequential in the world today and it will do much to determine the shape of the 21st century," in his remarks at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on Tuesday.

Kerry mentioned a wide range of areas that require China-US cooperation, which demonstrates the reality that in general the relationship between China and the US has more areas of cooperation than competition, except for the conventional security sector.

After all, in the present-day world, no solution to global problems can be reached without Sino-US cooperation.

Obama's visit comes shortly after the US midterm elections on Tuesday, with the Republicans seizing the Senate in addition to the House of Representatives which was already in their grip. They will be in charge of Congress from January, putting Obama in a lame duck position with limited room for him to maneuver in domestic affairs during the remainder of his presidency. But this may provide more room for Obama to do something diplomatically.

Sino-US relations are not in good shape as Washington has played a role in the disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. But since the US has already sunk into a quagmire in Ukraine, and as a result of Islamic State terrorism, China-US relations may become the only area where Obama can leave a legacy.

It's very likely that after the APEC meeting Obama will carefully seek to maintain the momentum of bilateral relations and make more active and constructive adjustments to his China policy.

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Sun Xiaobo based on an interview with Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai-based Fudan University. sunxiaobo@globaltimes.com.cn