By Li Hongmei

President Barack Obama said on Friday he welcomed the "peaceful rise" of China and that, despite inevitable areas of tension, both countries want a cooperative relationship, as he and Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off two days of meetings.

Obama welcomed President Xi Jinping to the sprawling Sunnylands resort in sun-scorched southeastern California, the first encounter between the leaders as heads of state

Speaking to reporters at the start of the talks, Obama said he wanted to achieve a "new model of cooperation" with China.

A strong relationship between the world's two largest economies is "important... for the world," Obama said.

President Xi expressed the hope for deeper cooperation, saying he hopes the meetings will "shape the future" of the US-China relationship, and China and the United States could build a new model of "big country" relations.

On a day when the temperature here reached 115 degrees, Obama could not shun a red-hot domestic controversy over the federal government's surveillance of domestic phone records and foreign Internet traffic, despite his attempt early on Friday to dampen the furor with an emphatic public defense of the antiterrorism tactics.