When they met in California earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed a long list of disputes from trade to climate change to cyber-hacking.
Both were anxious to get along and only small steps forward will directly result. The key deliverable for the first U.S.-China Summit, early in Obama's second term and as Xi starts an expected decade in power, is rapport.
The unresolved question of their relations in the Asia-Pacific hovered in the background. Xi touched on this by saying "the vast Pacific Ocean has enough space" for both countries. Underlying this was Chinese resentment about the U.S. "pivot," or rebalancing of military and diplomatic assets, to Asia.