Expert: Strategic talks to set pace tone for Xi's visit to United States in Sept

The US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings scheduled for next week are expected to lay the roadmap for a fruitful state visit by President Xi Jinping to the United States in September, experts said.

"The S&ED's agenda and degree of success will be assessed by both sides in this context, as to whether it would set the agenda, or set in motion the processes that will increase the chances of a positive state visit, or create a positive atmosphere for a state visit," said Kenneth Lieberthal, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

"The most important part of state visits is typically that they are action-forcing events," he said. "They force the top staff on both sides to take up the issues that are the deepest and most difficult issues, to try to be sure that they can come out at a better place, so that the state visit ends up being a successful one," he said.