Xi Jinping's vision of new type of Sino-US relations 'too ambitious'

President Xi Jinping's vision for a new type of Sino-US relations, laid out at a summit with his US counterpart Barack Obama two years ago, has proven overly ambitious, a prominent expert on foreign relations has said.

A more realistic framework was needed, said Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University.

Xi called for a "new type of major-power relationship" at his summit with Obama at Sunnylands in California in 2013. Chinese diplomats said the initiative was defined by three points: no conflict or confrontation, mutual respect for each other's core interests and major concerns, and mutually beneficial cooperation.

Yan said none of the points had been realised, and the requirements for the new framework should be less demanding. "I feel we can establish such a new type of major-power relations as long as we lower the standard to include only the first point [of no conflict and confrontation] to define it," Yan said.

Yan blamed the failure on the US, saying Washington had failed to respect China but required Beijing to respect it.

Benjamin Herscovitch, a research fellow with the Australia-based Centre for Independent Studies, said the policy framework was not workable.