After a year of uncertainties, the prospects for Sino-US relations in 2011 are in the spotlight at present. Scholars and the media in both countries are scrutinizing President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States, and people all over the world are watching closely, such is the importance of the meeting.

In a comment titled "How to stay friends with China", published in the New York Times on Jan 2, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski described President Hu's visit as "the most important top-level United States-Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping's historic trip more than 30 years ago".

"The United States and China should not flinch from a forthright discussion of their differences - but they should undertake it with the knowledge that each needs the other," Brzezinski said. "A failure to consolidate and widen their cooperation would damage not just both nations, but the world as a whole."

China and the US have many interests in common, which emphasizes the need to further develop reciprocal relations through cooperation.

However, the question remains how to improve mutual trust and dialogue. A question that is especially important at this time, when China's rise is changing the established political order, both nations need to carefully strive to reach a balanced relationship.

Ever since the ice-breaking visit of former US president Richard Nixon in 1972, Sino-US relations have experienced many difficulties and setbacks, but even so they have continued to move forward. But while China's policy toward the US has fundamentally remained stable, the US' policy toward China often varies with changes of presidency.

I once attended courses given by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's secretary of state, in Tsinghua University, and was deeply impressed by his words that China is the concern of every US president, but none has enough knowledge of it on entering the White House.