Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping will seclude themselves in a desert oasis today for an unusually relaxed US-China summit, called to forge some personal chemistry between the two men.
Allegations of Chinese cyber hacking and espionage, North Korea's nuclear defiance and constant trade niggles between the world's two single largest economies and possible future superpower rivals will dominate the talks.
But Obama also has a wider purpose -- trying to glean the strategic vision of the man who will likely guide rising China through the rest of his own presidency, and deep into the administration of whoever succeeds him.
Xi makes his first trip to the United States as president months after taking control of the full machinery of the Chinese state, and US-based China watchers see the talks as the most significant Sino-US summit in years.
Obama meanwhile will get a new crack at forging progress in a geopolitical relationship likely to partly define his legacy, and which caused the White House frustration in stilted talks with ex-Chinese president Hu Jintao.
The two leaders had not been expected to meet until the G20 summit in Russia in September -- but both sides, sensing uncertainty seeping into a complicated and often difficult relationship, saw value in an earlier encounter.
The presidents will ditch the formality and convention of normally minutely planned US-China summits, and meet at the sumptuous Annenberg retreat in a sun-scorched corner of California.
"Early in the term of both presidents, we felt that having this type of wide-ranging, informal setting for discussions between the two leaders would allow them to cover the broadest possible agenda," said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
