Hillary Clinton is on course to raise the $61m in private money needed to build a US pavilion for a trade fair in Shanghai next year, clearing one of the main foreign policy obstacles ahead of Barack Obama’s state visit to China next week.

Mrs Clinton, whose first visit as secretary of state was to China, inherited a situation where the US was the only country other than Andorra that had failed to confirm its attendance at the Shanghai Expo – to the chagrin of the Chinese.