China and the United States will hold the fifth round of strategic dialogue from Jan. 17 to 18 in China with the consents of the two countries, announced by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Thursday.

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will co-chair the dialogue, Jiang told a regular press conference. 

"The two sides will continue to have an in-depth exchange of the views on Sino-U.S. relations and the international and regional issues of common concerns based on the previous four dialogues," she said.

The dialogue mechanism, established in accordance with the consensus reached in 2004 between Chinese President Hu Jintao and the U.S. President George W. Bush, is an important platform for the two countries to communicate on strategic and political level.

The first strategic dialogue was held in Beijing in August of 2005.