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