'Asymmetric harmony' for US-China ties

President Xi Jinping is again meeting with US President Barack Obama and pundits are eager to offer prescriptions and proscriptions to improve China-US relations. Although good-willed, much of the advice is repetitive, even soporiferous. Maybe that's a good thing - because predictability, in sensitive diplomacy as in financial markets, is a good thing. But maybe there's better advice.

The Xi-Obama meeting will take place on the sidelines of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on Thursday. While the aim of the summit is critical - preventing nuclear terrorism - attention is focused on the Obama-Xi meeting.

So how can the two sides show respect to each other without compromising their core interests? And how can they accommodate each other without appeasing? Start with what some on each side, suspicious of the other, really think.