While the U.S. stock market is seemingly stable and both the Chinese and U.S. economies on a relatively strong foothold, there is no doubt there are considerable risks to be overcome, not least climbing energy costs and the persisting fear of another large-scale terrorist attack on a major financial center. Such factors, however, are to a greater extent outside the control of the world's biggest and seventh-largest economies.

Rather, the single-biggest issue for debate is China's foreign currency regime -- whether to free-float the yuan or not.

As China's economy continues its rapid rise and its products flood global markets, trade frictions between it and the countries it exports to have heightened. Moreover, China's recent expansion into the global energy markets, particularly in Latin America and Africa, in addition to the growing appetite of Chinese companies to buy out corporations in other industrialized countries, including the United States, have increased trade tensions.

At the same time, cries of China playing foul particularly by deliberately manipulating its currency market to favor Chinese goods have increased worldwide, with U.S. exporters being no exception.

"Many companies see Chinese products priced so that they're impossible to compete against. Others are losing customers that move to China and can't be replaced domestically," said Al Lubrano, president of Lincoln, R.I.-based materials systems manufacturer Technical Materials and member of the National Association of Manufacturers' China policy subcommittee, before a Congressional hearing on U.S. economic policy toward China earlier this year.

Opponents of China's currency regime have argued the Chinese government has deliberately manipulated the yuan's value significantly lower than its fair market price, thereby giving Chinese products overseas an unfair advantage over goods made elsewhere. A weak currency value makes exports less expensive and thus more attractive to consumers. Similarly, a low-valued yuan makes it cheaper for foreign companies to hire Chinese workers and pay less for personnel costs.

Granted, in July, Chinese authorities announced they would get rid of the fixed-rate regime that sets the yuan's value firmly against the U.S. dollar and instead adopt a crawling peg that sets the currency's value against a basket of other major currencies, including the yen, the euro and the greenback.

"China's new currency system offers the possibility for continued upward movement of the yuan in the coming weeks and months, and that is what we will be looking for," said NAM President John Engler shortly after China made its announcement about a new currency regime.

Still, Snow has made clear that upward pressure on the yuan is not coming quickly enough, and it is most likely he will urge the Chinese government to step up efforts to bolster the yuan's price on global markets.

At a news briefing Tuesday at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo shortly before departing for Shanghai, Snow told reporters the United States is "anxious to see the Chinese fulfill the commitment they made to allow market forces to play a larger role in setting their currency's value over time."

"They've gotten on the path that allows them to do so and we'd like to see China continue on that path," Snow added.

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