WASHINGTON: The United States hopes the "fast on his feet" style of China's new President Xi Jinping will loosen the stifling formality of past summits that did little to ease great power mistrust.
Obama will test the proposition that China's new leader is ready to talk candidly about the many differences between Washington and Beijing at an unusual laid-back meeting on Friday and Saturday in California.
But a cresting dispute about alleged Chinese cyber espionage, with both sides staking out tough positions, threatens to swamp the narrative adopted by both sides of an informal get-to-know you summit with low expectations.
Obama and Xi will have informal chats, a private dinner and a second day of bilateral talks in a freewheeling agenda that is a departure for the normally tightly scripted US-China summits, US officials said.
There are also plans for them to answer several questions from reporters at what will be the first summit since Xi rose to power as China's supreme leader and Obama embarked on his second White House term.
Despite simmering US-China tensions, the agenda shows Washington hopes to move on from what aides have privately described as Obama's frustrating meetings with Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao that stuck to talking points.
"(Xi) seems to be someone who is fast on his feet, who's open to engagement," said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview the talks at the Annenberg retreat in sweltering Palm Springs.
Xi also appears "willing to speak directly to Americans and to issues of concern to Americans in a manner that was not the hallmark of some of his predecessors," the official said.
Another White House advisor said that Obama put great store in forging a personal connection with foreign leaders, which could pay off down the line during a time of crisis.
"He enjoys interacting with leaders who can be at times more informal, who are direct and candid, can put aside talking points," the official said.
"We have seen indications that President Xi brings a bit more of that type of style than has been the case in the past."
Despite opening up on their hopes for an improved atmosphere in Sino-US summitry, White House aides are downplaying expectations of any clear progress in defusing deep differences between the two sides.
The run-up to the summit has been dominated by successive reports and allegations about alleged Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage and hacking targeting US military and commercial secrets.
A US official said Obama would tell Xi he must tackle hacking operations based in his nation, after US reports suggested covert Internet based espionage was rampant in China.
But China's ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, made clear that Beijing believed that it was also under threat --- from the US mainland.
"A huge number of Chinese computers, Chinese companies, and Chinese government agencies have also been attacked by hackers," Cui told Foreign Affairs magazine in an interview.
"If we trace these attacks, maybe some of them, or even most of them, would come from the United States," he said.
Mindful that cyber issues could overwhelm the carefully presented agenda for the talks, the two sides have already announced a set of working group talks in July on the issue.
Washington and Beijing are also at odds over a myriad of trade and currency disputes and China is irked by Obama's military and diplomatic "rebalancing" of US power towards Asia.
The Obama administration is meanwhile concerned by an increasingly nationalistic posture by China towards territorial disputes with US allies, including in the South China Sea.
Washington also hopes that Beijing will heap more pressure on its nominal ally North Korea over its recent nuclear belligerence.
US officials say they have been encouraged by signs that Beijing has tentatively shifted towards the US position on the issue in recent weeks.
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