Rice: US invites Xi for state visit(2)

Rice also said the US is taking leadership role in addressing the pressing need for enhanced cyber-security. "As more of the world comes online, we're leading an international effort to define the rules for how states engage with one another in cyberspace, while ensuring the Internet remains a powerful tool to drive future advances," she said.

Many nations, including many US allies, remain deeply suspicious of US behavior in cyberspace, following the revelations made by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden in mid 2013 that NSA had conducted large scale of surveillance of foreign leaders, foreign corporations and international organizations.

China has suspended a bilateral working group on cybersecurity after US Justice Department indicted five People's Liberation Army officers last May for cyber theft, a move described by many experts in China and the US as unwise in tackling the thorny issue between the two countries.

Rice also said that the US will start with the Asia-Pacific in its efforts to update the existing international system. "Our rebalance is deepening longstanding alliances and forging new partnerships to expand cooperation. We're investing in ASEAN, the East Asia Summit, and the Pacific Islands Forum to strengthen their capacity to enforce regional norms, respond to crises like natural disasters, and resolve disputes peacefully, so that the Asia Pacific remains a region of dynamic growth and opportunity," she said.

Many people in China have remained suspicious of the US rebalance strategy, describing it as a US geopolitical effort to curtail China's rapid rise in the region, where China has become the largest trading partner for most of the nations.

Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings, told China Daily earlier that Xi and Obama should hold high-level summit every year.

He said it's worth applauding that despite so many problems in 2014, the two nations' top leaders have still managed to bring relations back on the right track, referring to the Xi-Obama meeting in November.

While Xi is on the guest list this year, Rice said other Asian leaders, such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, South Korea President Park Geun-hye, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo, are also expected to visit the US this year.