US President Barack Obama will host his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, in Washington for a state visit beginning January 19, the White House announced Wednesday.

"Hu's visit will highlight the importance of expanding cooperation between the US and China on bilateral, regional and global issues, as well as the friendship between the peoples of our two countries," the White House said in an online statement. "The president looks forward to welcoming Hu to Washington to continue building a partnership that advances our common interests and addresses our shared concerns."

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that Hu's visit in January would mark a new era in Sino-US relations, and that Beijing was hoping to cement cooperative and comprehensive ties with Washington. It did not confirm the date for the trip.

Relations between the top two global economies underwent a rocky time in 2010, sniping at each other over the value of the renminbi, US arms sales to Taiwan, the Iran nuclear issue, climate change and tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Zhu Feng, a professor specializing in Sino-US relations at the School of International Studies at Peking University, told the AP that this visit will provide a great channel through which the two leaders will be able to express their political and economic interests.

"Lately, one of the biggest problems in US-Sino relations is that each side has held excessive expectations of what the other could conceivably deliver," David Lampton, a professor of China studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, told Reuters. "If this trip can lead the two leaders to gain a more realistic appreciation of each other's limits, it will be a success."

A report released Tuesday by the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said that due to Washington's growing strategic presence in Asia, frictions would likely arise anew in coming years, with diplomatic maneuverability becoming severely reduced.

"In the past year, there have been two major changes in Washington's judgment of China's development. One is that China has the capability, as well as the intention, to challenge the US. The other is that the plan to change China's political system through cultural and economic means has failed, and Washington needs to come up with a new tactic," Cao Xiaoyang, a researcher at the institute, wrote in the report.