In the 1990s, it was a widely held belief among some scholars in Washington that China needed the US more than the latter needed Beijing.

Things have changed now. Washington has become increasingly dependent on Beijing, as indicated by Obama's repeated stress on the importance of cooperating with China.

The US' increasing dependence on China has been attributed to the rise of China's influence in the international arena, which has been further amplified in the context of the global financial crisis.

Chinese citizens are, however, quite conscious of the country's wide gap with the US despite enormous progress over the past decades.

China is still experimenting with the primary stages of socialism and that phase is expected to last longer into the future.

As the world's sole superpower, the US' influence globally has been declining in recent years, but no single country can challenge its hegemony in the foreseeable future - China, of course, has neither the capability nor the aspiration to do so.

It is China's long-held policy to desist from playing the world's leader. As China continues its peaceful rise, its roles and responsibilities in international affairs are also expected to go up. Even so, the country's rising international stature will not change its deep commitment to focus on domestic development.

The media and some American scholars are so sensitive to China's utterances on topics of major concern that they often describe the nation as "tough" or "arrogant".

To safeguard its core interests, it is quite normal for China to take a clear-cut stance, and to even say "no" on some occasions.

The US should not regard this as China's way of demanding respect for its positions.

Sino-US relations have not progressed on an even keel in the past, but the two have managed to clear the occasional hurdle knowing full well that shared concerns will trump bilateral disputes in the end.

The author is a researcher at the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.