U.S. lawmakers and religious leader on Friday expressed their best wishes to the forthcoming Shanghai Expo at a grand reception at Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in New York.

If it's not the Greatest Show on Earth, then the World Expo opening next month in Shanghai is surely the biggest, in keeping with China's striving to do everything on a gargantuan scale.

Members of Congress have urged China, which has set up 60 cultural centers in the United States, to allow more than the four American centers it says can operate in China. However, the State Department has no funds to match what China is spending on those projects, the officials say.

The Expo 2010 Shanghai China is expected to reflect today's real picture of China's economic development and national strength and help rectify the wrong perception others have on it.

Any move by China to allow some yuan appreciation would be more a vindication of the Treasury's softly-softly approach than the gun-barrel diplomacy coming from elsewhere in Washington.

Last week, Russia delivered 15 additional batteries of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to China, making good on an about 2 billion dollar deal signed in the mid-2000s. Yet despite the publicity surrounding the sale, the Russian-Chinese arms transfer relationship is in trouble.

India has long been regarded as an American ally but a series of missteps by the United States may be driving a strategic American partner directly into China's embrace.

Geithner reckons that a series of meetings lined up between him and his Chinese counterparts over the next three months will be very "critical" to bring about the policy changes from China that may lead to a "more balanced", and sustainable global economy.