BEIJING -- Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo left Sunday afternoon for the third round of the China-US Economic and Strategic Dialogue which will be held on May 9-10 in Washington DC.

Dai will co-chair the "Strategic Track" of the dialogue with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while Wang will co-chair the "Economic Track" with US Treasure Secretary Timo thy Geithner, each as a special representative of their respective presidents.

The dialogue mechanism was upgraded from former Strategic Dialogue and biennial Strategic Economic Dialogue, which were initiated by the two heads of state in 2005 and 2006, respectively.