Summit to help resolve any crisis: expert

Like many who have met Chinese President Xi Jinping in person, Stephen Orlins, a veteran China hand, says he was impressed by how the Chinese leader lets his "human quality" show, which makes people around him feel at ease and comfortable.

Stephen Orlins

Orlins, who leads the National Committee on US-China Relations, had met Xi a few times before the Chinese leader took office in March. Once was in 2006 when the committee hosted Xi, the then Party secretary in Zhejiang province, at the opening ceremony of Zhejiang Week in New York.

Orlins presented Xi with a book with photos of his father Xi Zhongxun's visit to the US in 1980. Xi Zhongxun, a Communist revolutionary and former vice-premier, was a member of the first delegation of Chinese provincial leaders to visit the US as guests of the committee.

Xi opened the book and flipped through the pages with Orlins, asking questions about the photos. "Who was this? Where was this one taken?" Orlins recalled Xi asking.

"There were 500 people in the audience and I was with him at the head table," Orlins recalled. "He was perfectly comfortable in showing his human quality; it was a very human interactive exchange. It was quite impressive."

On June 7-8, the Chinese president will meet with his US counterpart Barack Obama at Sunnylands, a retreat in Rancho Mirage, California, for a two-day summit, the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies since Xi took office in March and Obama won re-election in November. The event carries great significance with its timing and what many call "rare setting" at the desert retreat.

"Just think if 30 or 40 years ago, it would have been impossible to conceive of this kind of interaction, and here we have it occurring in California," said Orlins. "I give both countries' foreign policy advisors high marks for being able to engineer this, both in terms of the politics and scheduling of it."

Orlins is hopeful about the two leaders' talks, citing the two countries over the past 30 years have made great progress in many areas.

"If a crisis should arrive in the coming months, the fact that they've had this meeting, that they understand each other, that they have interacted, that they know where each other is coming from, will help resolve that crisis," said Orlins.

"It is a very big deal", noted Orlins.