Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, en route to an ambitious tour of Asia, meanwhile raised the regional stakes for the administration, saying its bid to engage rising India and China represented a "critical test" of US leadership.

The White House announced that Obama would meet Hu for the seventh time before the G20 summit in Seoul on November 11, and said current rows over trade and the yuan currency fitted a consistent pattern of complicated Sino-US ties.

Clinton, who will head to China's Hainan island to meet Chinese state councilor Dai Bingguo Saturday, reiterated that the Obama administration's diplomatic push in Asia was not motivated by a desire to surround China.

"The relationship between China and the United States is complex and of enormous consequence but we are committed to getting it right," Clinton said in a speech in Hawaii.

"There are some in both countries who believe that China's interests and ours are fundamentally at odds.

"They apply a zero-sum calculation to our relationship, so whenever one of us succeeds, the other must fail," Clinton said.

"But that is not our view. In the 21st century, it is not in anyone's interest for the United States and China to see each other as adversaries."

Clinton's comments came as observers begin to question whether the relationship between China and the United States is deteriorating ahead of Obama's Asian tour beginning next week to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.

Washington and Beijing have jousted over currency, trade, and human rights issues in recent months, but may both have an interest in cooling critical rhetoric ahead of Hu's planned visit to the United States in January.

Clinton, who is visiting Guam, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, and American Samoa over the next two weeks, also dwelt on the wider US strategic mission in Asia.

"In a crowded field of highly dynamic, increasingly influential emerging nations, two stand out: India and China," she said.

"Their simultaneous rise is reshaping the world and our ability to cooperate effectively with these countries will be a critical test of our leadership."

Earlier, in Washington, the White House previewed the Hu-Obama talks in Seoul and disputed suggestions that US-China relations were deteriorating.

Potential topics include US claims that China's currency is unfairly undervalued to boost its exports, trade disputes, North Korea's nuclear challenge and the international sanctions regime against Iran.

"On China, since day one, we have had a clear-eyed and realistic assessment of what can be done in the China relationship," said Jeffrey Bader, Obama's top White House Asia policy official.

"I've been in China (relations) for 30 years," Bader said.

"This relationship has never been an easy relationship. It's never been a relationship where everything is on the positive side of the ledger.

"There's always been a balance sheet of issues where we're cooperating and issues where we're not cooperating."

Obama has been making increasingly vocal demands for China to revalue its currency but with negligible progress: the yuan has risen only three percent against the dollar since Beijing signaled more flexibility in June.

There is anger in Congress that the White House has not moved more aggressively against China, despite fears that the two powers are on the brink of a bitter trade war with the potential to damage the world economy.

But China's state media has accused the United States of "double standards" and blamed loose monetary policies of the world's biggest economy for triggering global currency tensions.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was in Beijing on Sunday to discuss the currency issue, after delaying a US government report that could brand China a currency manipulator, until after the G20 summit.

Beijing is also facing accusations in Washington that it is using its near-global monopoly of rare earth minerals to bully neighbors in trade and diplomatic disputes.

The two sides are also at odds over a series of trade disputes and human rights issues, such as the case of jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, sparking Beijing's anger and Washington's praise.

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