Hillary Clinton travels to China amid row over Chinese dissident Chen, 40, is said to want to stay in China, but US officials would be loath to hand him over without ironclad safety guarantees. Kenneth Lieberthal, a China expert who was a top aide to president Bill Clinton, said he believed that the United States wanted a solution that is "the least embarrassing to China and to do so as expeditiously as possible." The question to my mind is whether in China this turns into a political football in a very political season. I think it's more likely to be resolved than to turn into a political football, but you never can predict this stuff," said Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. China is preparing for a once-in-a-decade political handover, with the communist leadership eager to preserve calm as Vice President Xi Jinping prepares to succeed President Hu Jintao. The facade of a smooth transition was already shattered when rising star Bo Xilai was dramatically ousted from China's inner circle in a scandal that involved his right-hand man seeking refuge - unsuccessfully - at a US consulate. The United States is also entering a political period. White House hopeful Mitt Romney has sharply criticised Obama's China policy, saying he should challenge the rising Asian power more aggressively over its human rights record, trade practices and military expansion. Before the Chen case, Obama administration officials had hoped to showcase small signs of progress in relations with China at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which takes place Thursday and Friday. Largely in response to inflationary pressure, China has let its yuan appreciate. Currency levels have been a long source of friction, with US lawmakers charging that Beijing keeps the value of the yuan artificially low to flood the world with cheap exports. On other sore points, China has in recent weeks reduced imports of oil from Iran, spoken out - albeit cautiously - against a rocket launch by North Korea and supported a peace plan for Syria after joining Russia in vetoing two UN resolutions. South Sudan said that China, a major oil importer, would lend the new nation $8 billion despite Beijing's long-standing ties to Khartoum. The US pointsman on Sudan, Princeton Lyman, is joining Clinton to seek China's help in ending recent fighting. "Up until now, in the last few months, things have been going pretty well in the relationship," said Nina Hachigian, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. But Hachigian said China's human rights record was one area without positive developments and that Chen's case "is obviously going to affect the aura in which the talks are being held." Mrs Clinton will head from China to Bangladesh and then India, as part of US efforts to build relations with the world's other billion-plus nation. Mrs Clinton met Monday with key allies the Philippines and Japan, throwing a gala dinner for Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda just before her flight to China.