Two senior US diplomats are to embark on a three-day visit to China this week, but will the visit break the deadlock between the two countries?

US Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg and Jeffrey Bader, senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, will pay the visit from Tuesday to Thursday.

The high-level visit comes amid spats between the two countries following Washington's 6.4-billion-US-dollar arms sale plan to Taiwan and President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang has said the US side proposed the visit and "China has accepted it."

The two US officials "will exchange views with the Chinese side over matters related to China-US relations," Qin said.

Steinberg, number two in the US State Department, invented the new concept of "strategic reassurance" late last year to describe US-China relations, suggesting Washington welcome China's arrival as a global power even as China reassures the US and its neighbors that its rise would not run counter to their interests.

Bader served as director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington-based foreign policy think tank.

Analysts describe the visit as a US effort to "mend bilateral ties".

"The US side proposing the visit shows that it has realized the severity of the problem and hopes to patch up the ties as soon as possible. That is a good gesture," said Tao Wenzhao, an expert with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Steinberg and Bader will discuss with the Chinese side how to make joint efforts to put bilateral ties back on track," said Tao.

The United States angered China with its decision to sell arms to Taiwan and Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama regardless of China's protest. China has repeated that the US move would severely harm its core interests.

"As the saying goes, it is better for the doer to undo what he has done. The US side initiated the problem and should take some steps," said Fu Mengzi, a US expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

The visit also demonstrates that the two countries have the will to create a favorable atmosphere for the development of bilateral ties through face-to-face dialogue, as they need to cooperate on a range of global issues, including the economic downturn, climate change and trade liberalization.

"Despite the frictions and differences, cooperation remains the mainstream of China-US relations," said Fu. "China and the United States are inter-dependent at the world stage, they need each other."

On the day China announced the US officials' visit, Premier Wen Jiabao said in an online chat that "a good China-US relationship benefits both China and the United States as well as their peoples."

Wen said Saturday that China did not want 2010 to be "an unpeaceful year" for trade and economic relations with the United States.

Since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1979, the China-US relationship had developed amid twists and turns and to cooperate amid quarrels, analysts say.

"For China and the United States, no one can develop without another. The two countries should maintain overall cooperation," said Tao.