China warns U.S.: Don't meddle in the South China Sea dispute

Clinton faces a balancing act, pushing on the territorial disputes while keeping cooperation on track on other issues including reining in the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, the Syria crisis and economic disputes that have long bedeviled the two countries.

“One of the challenges before us is to demonstrate how we deal with areas in which we have different perceptions and where we face challenging issues on the ground, or in this case on the water,” one senior U.S. official said.

But some Chinese media have been blunt in their opposition to Clinton. The Global Times, a popular, nationalist tabloid, accused her of “deeply intensifying mutual suspicion”.

“Many Chinese people dislike Hillary Clinton,” it said in an editorial. “She has brought new and extremely profound mutual distrust between the mainstream societies of the two countries, and removing that will not be easy.”