PREVIEW: China's future leader faces tough but thorough US audition

By Bill Smith and Pat Reber Feb 12, 2012, 2:24 GMT

Beijing/Washington - The man anointed to lead China for the next decade faces a stiff test this week on what could be his final visit to Washington before rising to the top of the 80 million-member Chinese Communist Party.

Protests are expected by Free Tibet supporters during Vice President Xi Jinping's visit, adding to US officials' pressure over Syria, Iran, North Korea, China's currency, trade and human rights.

The visit comes amid US President Barack Obama's strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, with plans to boost the US military presence there and steadily increase pressure on China to level the economic playing field.

Washington is keen to give China's future leader an intense exposure to all sides of America.

In addition to meetings with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden - who made a splash in Beijing last August by eating a down-to-earth noodle lunch - Xi will make what US officials called a 'significant' visit to the Pentagon, have lunch at the State Department and dinner at Biden's home.

He will also hear from the US business community about the difficulty of doing business in China. He will stop in Iowa, where Xi visited in 1985. And he will visit Los Angeles, along with Biden, before heading home.

The main purpose of Xi's trip is to reduce the long-standing 'trust deficit' between the two nations, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said.

But Shi Yinhong, an international relations analyst and director of American Studies at Renmin University of China, says Obama's efforts to build 'strategic trust' with China have not been matched by his actions.

'I think if we look at what the US has done ... selling weapons to Taiwan repeatedly - and in Syria, Libya, and what it will do in Iran, how can the US expect China to trust the US?' Shi told dpa.

Xi, 58, is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as Communist Party leader in November and as president in March 2013. He is known as a 'princeling' - one of several prominent leaders who are the sons of former top party members.

But despite differences with the US, Xi's visit could be this year's most important Sino-US diplomatic event, spurred by the need for economic cooperation, said Tao Wenzhao, a US expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-run think-tank.

'They will mainly focus on the economy and trade,' he said. 'Obama is facing the problem of his re-election at a time when the US jobless rate is still very high, while China also needs to maintain its speed of development.'

US deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said the US-China relationship was key to 'increasing our presence in the fastest growing market in the world.' Getting to better know the future leader of China was an important step in improving an already 'strong relationship,' another US official said.

Human rights issues however will not be sacrificed 'for the sake of having a comfortable visit,' said Daniel Russel, Obama's senior advisor on Asian affairs. Part of the US agenda is for Xi to 'understand the issues that are important' to the US, including the situation in Tibet.

Several Tibetan areas have been rocked this year by escalating anti-government protests, self-immolations and the shooting dead of at least five Tibetans by police. Analyst Shi said that Tibet is important for the US domestic audience, but Washington knows China wll not change its policies.

'They can answer Congress that 'we have asked',' he said. 'That's all.'

During President Hu Jintao's official state visit in early 2011, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid boycotted the state dinner at the White House over human rights issues. In separate meetings, Hu got an earful from US lawmakers about human rights and it is likely that Xi will hear the same when he goes to Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Xi is not expected to offer any concessions on China's currency, which critics claim is deliberately undervalued to make Chinese exports cheaper. Vice President Cui reaffirmed that China has no plans to allow any significant appreciation of the yuan in the near term.

The two sides appear to have avoided diplomatic fallout from an unexplained day spent in a US consulate in south-western China last week by the country's most famous anti-mafia police chief, Wang Lijun, who has since disappeared.

On international efforts over Iran's nuclear programme, China has taken a cautious approach and Shi said it could make a 'very limited' concession if Xi receives US pressure during his visit. Rhodes praised China for helping to keep up the 'robust' international pressure on Iran.

Cui played down the differences over the veto of the UN resolution on Syria, which US Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will meet Xi in Washington, called a 'travesty.' Cui said the veto was 'in accordance with our principles and positions' and China's opposition to 'external intervention to achieve regime change.'

In a possible sign that China's stance may have softened, Chinese officials met a Syrian opposition delegation last week in Beijing and had maintained contact with the opposition National Council.

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