The first summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama will catch widespread attention, as both countries are seeking a new type of relationship between the world's first and second economies, South African media said on Friday.
On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the western U.S. state of California for a meeting with President Obama.
The summit, the first since Xi took office in March, will be held on Friday and Saturday at Sunnylands, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Estate.
"The summit will underline the growing prominence of China in world affairs," said the South African main newspaper Business Day in its editorial.
"Since the 2008 global financial crisis there has been a sea change in the international expectation that China is fast assuming superpower status, which is reflected in the views of political elites and international public opinion," the editorial said.
The editorial holds that Chinese President Xi's first meeting with Obama in the U.S. will reflect an assessment that China's rising needs to be underpinned by better international understanding of the country.
"Between 2009 and 2011 alone there was a 10-percentage-point increase in public sentiment in countries as diverse as France, Germany, Spain, Pakistan, Jordan, Israel and Poland that China will surpass or has surpassed the U.S. as the world's most powerful state according to the Washington-based Pew Research Center's global attitudes project," the editorial said.
"The international opinion tends to be more favorable towards China's rising," it added, noting that the Chinese visiting president would seek to redevelop a new type of great-power relationship between the two countries.
During his meeting with Obama, President Xi would reiterate China's long-standing pledges of "securing a harmonious, peaceful rise to power and becoming a responsible stakeholder in the international system," said the editorial.
The editorial praised China for having an attractive culture that has long been admired by foreigners.
