The June 7-8 summit between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Barack Obama has drawn worldwide attention. Though some political observers are busy trying to fathom why the Sino-US summit is being held earlier than expected and why its venue is the Sunnylands Estate in California instead of Washington DC, the importance of the meeting lies elsewhere.

The two leaders' first face-to-face meeting since Obama began his second term as US president and Xi assumed the leadership of China will help find a way for Beijing and Washington to work with each other, not against each other. This is important because the significance of Sino-US relations extends far beyond the bilateral scope and the two countries' interactions have a direct bearing on regional geopolitics, and global peace, stability and development.

The common interests of China and the US far outweigh their differences, but we cannot underestimate the risks these differences, especially security concerns, could pose to bilateral relations. Sino-US security ties, especially military ties, have always been a sensitive subject, which, if not properly handled, could compromise their efforts to build a new type of relationship.