On January 12, 2011, the Foreign Ministry held a briefing for Chinese and foreign media. Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai introduced the background, main activities and significance of President Hu Jintao's upcoming state visit to the US.

According to Cui, at the invitation of US President Barack Obama, President Hu Jintao will pay a state visit to the US from January 18 to 21. During the visit, President Hu will attend a range of activities in Washington, including meeting with President Obama and attending the welcome ceremony and state banquet. The two heads of state will exchange in-depth opinions on the bilateral relations and the major regional and international issues of common concern. President Hu will also meet with part of the key members of the US Congress and contact the American people from different sectors extensively. Later he will visit Chicago.

Cui said that the international situation continues experiencing profound and complicated changes, global challenges are on the rise and countries become more interdependent. As the biggest developing and developed countries in the world, China and the US share wide common interest on a series of major issues concerning the whole world, especially concerning peace and development in Asia and Pacific. They face many common challenges and shoulder common heavy responsibilities. China-US relationship has become one of the most important bilateral relations.

He pointed out that China-US relations in general have maintained a stable development momentum and achieved new progresses since President Obama took office two years ago. The two countries maintain close high-level communications. President Hu and President Obama have met each other seven times. President Obama successfully visited China in 2009. The two heads of state have reached important consensus on jointly building a positive, cooperative and comprehensive China-US relationship in the 21st century. The two countries keep frequent dialogues in all fields and at all levels. They have held two successful rounds of strategic and economic dialogue and established a high-level consulting mechanism of cultural cooperation. The convergence of their mutual interest goes deeper and bilateral pragmatic cooperation in various sectors, such as economy, trade, energy, environment, anti-terrorism, law enforcement, culture and education keeps moving forward. China and the US have communicated and coordinated with each other closely in handling the international financial crisis and on major regional hot-spot issues, climate change and other global issues. The bilateral relations are gaining greater strategic significance and rising global influence. Despite frictions and differences, cooperation based on common interest always remains the mainstream of bilateral ties.

He stressed that President Hu's upcoming state visit to the US, as a major event on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of China and the US opening doors to each other and at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, is very significant. We hope that the visit will push forward the positive, cooperative and comprehensive China-US relationship and point out the direction for bilateral ties in the new era; achieve as many mutually beneficial results of pragmatic cooperation as possible, lift the bilateral exchanges and cooperation to a new level and bring more benefits to the people; broaden bilateral coordination and cooperation on major regional and international issues and help maintain regional and global peace, stability and prosperity; promote the people-to-people contacts and consolidate the social and public opinion foundation of China-US friendship.

He indicated that both China and the US attach great importance to the visit. The two sides keep close communications and the preparations are well underway. He believes that with the joint efforts of both sides President Hu's upcoming state visit to the US will achieve full success.

He then answered questions of journalists. Nearly one hundred Chinese and foreign journalists attended the briefing.