BBC News

When Barack Obama became US president, one of his top foreign policy priorities was to improve relations with China.  Yet on the eve of President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington, US-China relations are worse, rather than better.

Administration officials feel their efforts to reach out to China have been rebuffed. Ironically, in 2007, President Hu Jintao had told the 17th Congress of the Communist Party that China needed to invest more in its soft, or attractive, power.