US Vice President Biden visits China

US Vice President Joe Biden is in China on the first and most critical leg of an Asia tour that will also take him to Japan and Mongolia.

Despite festering tension over debt, deficits and currency, Biden's priority during the trip is to get to know China's next generation of leaders.

Global economic stability rests on the United States and China working together, US Vice President Joe Biden told China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping, in talks seeking to shore up confidence in the dollar and bond with Beijing's next leader.

"I would suggest that there is no more important relationship that we need to establish on the part of the United States than a close relationship with China," Biden told Xi at the start of talks on Thursday in the Great Hall of the People, a cavernous ceremonial chamber in central Beijing.

"I am absolutely confident that the economic stability of the world rests in no small part on cooperation between the United States and China," he said.

Biden's visit is more about building trust than striking deals.

Vice President Xi (pronounced "Shee") is overwhelmingly likely to succeed Hu Jintao as Chinese President from early 2013, when he will also inherit responsibility for his country's vast, sometimes troublesome relationship with the United States.

Both sides cast a warm glow on relations at the start of their talks, which reporters were allowed to briefly observe.

"I too believe that under the new conditions China and the United States have ever more extensive common interests and we shoulder ever more important responsibilities," Xi told Biden.

"We would like to work with your country to promote the development of relations between our two great nations."

Biden will be looking for signs of how Xi, 58, intends to handle relations, which span currency and trade ties and tensions, US arms sales to Taiwan, diplomatic disputes from Sudan to North Korea, and contention over human rights.

"Foreign policy is more than just one visit, it's about establishing relationships and trust," Biden told Xi, a tall, fleshy son of a revolutionary veteran.

"It is my fond hope that our personal relationship will continue to grow as well."

For China, Biden's five-day visit that began Wednesday is a chance to test the Obama administration's intentions on US debt and possible fresh arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing calls an illegitimate breakaway province.

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