Xi Jinping’s trip to US

President Xi Jinping’s trip to US city of Seattle highlightsWashington state’s China ties

The state - home to American firms such as Microsoft, Amazon.com and aircraft maker Boeing - exported more to mainland last year than any other

Associated Press in Seattle

PUBLISHED : Monday, 21 September, 2015, 10:27am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 22 September, 2015, 1:02pm

President Xi Jinping, who arrives in Seattle on Tuesday, visited the United States in 2012 (above) when he was vice-president. File photo: AP

When President Xi Jinping arrives in the northwest US city of Seattle on Tuesday, on his way to the capital, Washington, later this week, he will be visiting the American state that exports more to his country than any other.

Washington state last year sent more than US$20 billion in aircraft, wheat, apples and other products to China.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Xi Jinping’s US visit: itinerary, issues and delegation

Microsoft, based in the Washington city of Redmond, and Seattle-based Amazon.com and Boeing – which has deep roots in the state – are all keen to capitalise on Xi’s visit, focusing on the country’s long-term potential at a time when its economy is troubled.

Tim Cook of Apple (above) will be among the US chief executives taking part in a round-table discussion with President Xi Jinping in Seattle on Wednesday. Photo: TNS

Xi’s four-day trip, beginning on Tuesday, also carries with it an opportunity for him to use the sight of major US companies, from Apple to General Motors, to send a reassuring message home: China is still very much a much sought-after market.

[Xi Jinping] is talking to the high-tech executives to convey to the Chinese audience that, see, the biggest Western firms are still anxious to do business with us

DAVID BACHMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

“One of the reasons he’s talking to the high-tech executives is not necessarily for business purposes here, but to convey back to the Chinese audience that, see, Western firms – the biggest Western firms – are still anxious to do business with us,” said David Bachman, a University of Washington professor and former chairman of its China Studies Programme.

“He’s trying to exude a sense of confidence at a time when some of that self-confidence about China’s economic future has been dissipated,” he said.

The visit comes as friction between China and the US has grown.

READ MORE: Obama ready to talk tough with China's President Xi Jinping during US state visit

Among the sources of tension are hacking attacks on the US said to be directed by Beijing and China’s moves to assert its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

[Xi Jinping] is trying to exude a sense of confidence at a time when some of that self-confidence about China’s economic future has been dissipated

DAVID BACHMAN, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Xi has quickly become China’s most powerful leader in decades, cracking down on corruption and activists alike.

He is the fourth consecutive Chinese leader to visit Washington state – Deng Xiaoping came in 1979, Jiang Zemin in 1993 and Hu Jintao in 2006.

Xi plans visits to Boeing’s Everett factory at Paine Field airport, Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, and a high school in Tacoma, sister city to the Chinese port of Fuzhou.

In 1994, as a leader in Fuzhou, Xi signed the sister-city agreement between the ports, asThe News Tribune newspaper, in Tacoma, reported.

Boeing 777 aircraft models are photographed at last Thursday's Beijing International Aviation Expo. One-quarter of the planes Boeing has built have gone to China, and over the next 20 years, the mainland is expected to be Boeing’s biggest commercial airplane market. Photo: AFP

Boeing is a big driver of Washington state’s top ranking in terms of China exports. Last year it sold a record 155 aircraft to Chinese customers.

This year about one-quarter of the planes Boeing has built have gone to China, and over the next 20 years, China was expected to be Boeing’s biggest commercial airplane market, with a projected need for 6,330 new planes worth an estimated $950 billion, the company said.

Washington state’s ties to China go beyond business, state leaders said.

With backing from Microsoft, the University of Washington and Beijing’s Tsinghua University are opening a new technology graduate school in the city of Bellevue called the Global Innovation Exchange.

It is the first Chinese research institution to establish a US location, with students and faculty from both universities working to tackle complex global problems.

READ MORE: Xi Jinping and Barack Obama unlikely to crack thorniest issues during Washington summit

Former Washington governor Gary Locke, who recently served as US ambassador to China, said the visit went beyond raising the profile of Washington state and the Seattle area among the Chinese people and businesses “looking for expansion or looking to buy American products or services”.

Locke said it would give US companies a chance to press some of their concerns.

“For many foreign companies in China, there are concerns about a level playing field; about a strong, transparent legal system that will enforce intellectual property rights; about just being allowed to operate in China,” said Locke, who is Chinese-American.

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the mainland e-commerce company, Alibaba, will take part in Wednesday's round-table discussion involving President Xi Jinping and US and Chinese chief executives in Seattle. Photo: Sam Tsang

READ MORE: Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend top-level business summit during visit to United States

Among the items on Xi’s agenda is a round-table discussion on Wednesday moderated by former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, whose Paulson Institute, in Chicago, promotes sustainable economic growth in the US and China.

On the US side, chief executives Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and investor Warren Buffett will attend.

Those reportedly attending from China include Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the e-commerce giant Alibaba, and Robin Li of the web-services firm Baidu.

The meeting will provide an important opportunity to discuss the US-China business relationship, China’s economy, and the future of Chinese reforms, Paulson said.

“This US-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, and it’s under real tension and stress right now,” he said. “There are differences that have got to be dealt with, but we can’t let those preclude us from working in the areas where we have a common interest.”

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Xi Jinping, Chinese Leader, Has Weighty Agenda and BusySchedule for U.S. Visit

By JANE PERLEZ and YUFAN HUANGSEPT. 17, 2015

President Obama and President Xi Jinping at a lunch banquet in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in November 2014. CreditPool photo by Greg Baker

Xi Jinping, China’s president and Communist Party chief, arrives in the United States on Tuesday for his first state visit. For China, a priority will be bolstering Mr. Xi’s stature at home, and the events planned should play well on Chinese television. These include meetings in Seattle with American business executives, a 21-gun salute on the White House lawn and a state dinner, followed by Mr. Xi’s first speech before the United Nations in New York.

Though common ground may be found on issues like climate change, Mr. Xi is expected to yield little on points of contention between the United States and China, including cyberespionage, island-building in disputed areas of the South China Sea, and tightened controls on foreign businesses and nongovernmental organizations operating in China. Here are the details:

The Itinerary

Sept. 22 Mr. Xi lands in Seattle, where he will be welcomed by adelegation that will include the former Washington governors Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke, who is also a former ambassador to China.

Mr. Xi, then vice president, receiving flowers in 2012 upon his arrival to the Iowa home of the family that hosted him during a visit to the state in 1985. CreditSteve Pope/European Pressphoto Agency

In the evening, Mr. Xi will deliver a major policy speech at a dinner for business leaders and other dignitaries, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, sponsored by the National Committee on United States-China Relations and the U.S.-China Business Council.

Sept. 23 Mr. Xi takes part in a round-table discussion with chief executives sponsored by Henry M. Paulson Jr., chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago and a former Treasury secretary. He will also visit Boeing’s factory in Everett, Wash., its largest production site for commercial aircraft. China is a huge Boeing customer.

Mr. Xi will also tour Lincoln High School in Tacoma, which he visited in 1993, when he was an official in Fuzhou in Fujian Province.

Mr. Xi's connections to the U.S. go back three decades. Video by New China TV

Mr. Xi will attend the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum, hosted by Microsoft and the Internet Society of China, with Lu Wei, the Chinese official in charge of Internet policy, and guests who could include Robin Li of Baidu, Jack Ma of Alibaba and executives from Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM and Uber.

Sept. 24 Mr. Xi leaves for Washington, where he will have a working dinner at the White House with President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Susan E. Rice, the president’s national security adviser.

Sept. 25 Mr. Xi will be greeted with a 21-gun salute at the White House and hold a joint news conference with Mr. Obama. Mr. Kerry and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will host a lunch for him at the State Department. This will be followed by a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with congressional leaders and in the evening a state dinner at the White House.

Sept. 26 Mr. Xi proceeds to New York for events at the United Nations headquarters.

Sept. 27 China and the United Nations are hosting the Global Leaders’ Meeting on General Equality and Women’s Empowerment: A Commitment to Action, 20 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing in September 1995. Mr. Xi is scheduled to make opening remarks and to serve as chairman of the first session.

Sept. 28 Mr. Xi speaks at the United Nations’ 70th anniversary session. This will be his first speech at the United Nations and will underline China’s status as a charter member, a co-founder of the postwar international order and a permanent member of the Security Council.

Mr. Xi leaves the United States later in the day.

The Agenda

The United States sees these three issues as the most important:

Cybersecurity. The Obama administration says the combination of intellectual property theft and espionage by China has reached unprecedented proportions. The United States is contemplating sanctions against Chinese hackers, and to fend these off, a senior Chinese security official visited Washington recently for talks.

The South China Sea. The United States, worried about freedom of navigation in one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world, has told China to stop building artificial islands and to halt construction of military facilities on those islands. China considers itself to have sovereign rights over about 80 percent of the South China Sea. It is unlikely that the two sides will bridge their differences, but they may agree to try to manage them.

China’s new national security law. The law, which China says is necessary to meet a range of emerging threats, including terrorism and online espionage, has raised fears that it will infringe on the ability of American businesses to operate in ways to which they are accustomed in a free-market economy, requiring, for example, that information systems be “secure and controllable.” Also of concern is related legislation that would require nongovernmental organizations to find official sponsors in China.

China considers these the most pressing issues:

Developing a “great power relationship” with the United States.This goal was announced by Mr. Xi in 2012, when he was still vice president, and is an effort to be treated as an equal with the United States. Washington has resisted this, partly because it would call on the United States to respect what China says are its core interests in places like Tibet and the South China Sea.

Trade and investment in technology sectors by American companies. CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, reported that Mr. Xi’s visit would improve business ties between the two countries and narrow differences over protectionist policies and online security.

The South China Sea. China also places this high on its agenda but is expected to give little ground on its stand that it has “indisputable” sovereignty over large portions of the waterway.

Previous Encounters

This is not Mr. Xi’s first visit to the United States, nor his first meeting with Mr. Obama. As Mr. Obama said in 2013, “President Xi is no stranger to the United States.”

In 1985, Mr. Xi, then Communist Party chief of Zhengding County in Hebei Province, toured Iowa as part of an agricultural delegation under a sister state-province program.

In May 2006, as Communist Party secretary of Zhejiang Province, he led a delegation of provincial officials to New York, New Jersey and Washington to promote the province and encourage investment.

In February 2012, Mr. Xi, then China’s vice president, visited Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden at the White House. He also stopped in Muscatine, Iowa, where he met with his host family from his 1985 trip, and California, where he took in a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.

In June 2013, Mr. Xi met informally with Mr. Obama at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

President Xi Jinping and President Obama held a news conference after their meeting in 2013. Video by The White House

In November 2014, Mr. Xi met with Mr. Obama during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Beijing and announced an ambitious joint plan to curb the carbon emissions that contribute toclimate change.

Protocol and Security

China’s glamorous first lady, Peng Liyuan, a former opera singer, will accompany her husband. There has been no mention of their daughter, Xi Mingze, a Harvard graduate, joining them. In Washington, all eyes will be on Ms. Peng at the state dinner: Will she outshine Mrs. Obama in the fashion stakes?

Peng Liyuan, the first lady of China, and Mr. Xi welcoming Michelle Obama and her daughters, Sasha, second from right, and Malia, right, in Beijing in March 2014. Credit Pool photo by Andy Wong

Security is uppermost in the minds of Chinese officials. They have turned down several suggestions for events aimed at making Mr. Xi seem less formidable, apparently because of safety concerns.

Among those ideas: watching a Nascar race in Chicago, visiting a Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle and attending a baseball game. Perhaps also for security reasons, Mr. Xi is not continuing the tradition of his predecessors, who during their trips to the United States made a point of visiting a university campus; instead he is visiting the high school in Tacoma. (Hu Jintao spoke at Yale; Jiang Zemin spoke at Harvard; and Deng Xiaoping received an honorary degree from Temple University.)

China’s chief protocol officers were in Washington a few weeks ago, reviewing every step of the trip. One of their requests: United States security personnel guarantee that protesters will be kept out of sight and earshot of Mr. Xi. The Chinese worry that protesters from Falun Gong, the spiritual sect, or critics of China’s policies in Tibet might appear in the same camera frame as Mr. Xi. In 2006, a Falun Gong protester disrupted a reception for President Hu on the White House lawn, an episode Mr. Xi’s trip planners do not want repeated.

The Political Climate

Domestic politics often color a Chinese leader’s visit. One of the Republican contenders in the 2016 presidential election, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, urged Mr. Obama in August to withdraw the invitation to Mr. Xi and to “focus on holding China accountable over its increasing attempts to undermine U.S. interests.”

His rival for the nomination, Donald J. Trump, has led the charge against China, taking to Twitter and television with harsh words about China’s economy. “Because China’s going bad it’s going to bring us down, too, because we’re so heavily coupled with China,” he recently told Fox News. He has also said he would offer Mr. Xi a McDonald’s hamburger rather than a state dinner.