DHAKA: US president Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to China represents an ‘important milestone’ in US-China relations, the top White House national security aide Susan Rice said on Monday at a meeting with officials in Beijing.

Her trip comes at a turbulent time in US foreign policy and just two weeks after Washington accused a Chinese fighter jet of buzzing one of its surveillance planes.

It also comes ahead of a one-on-one summit between Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping that is being planned to coincide with the US leader’s visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing in November.

Obama ‘views this visit as an important milestone in the development of our important relationship’, Rice said at the opening of her meeting with Chinese state Councilors Yang Jiechi and Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai.

BDST: 1153 HRS, SEP 08, 2014