In Charged Moment, China's Political Heir Tries Introducing Himself to U.S.
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BEIJING -- When China's vice president and presumptive next president, Xi Jinping, arrives at the White House on Tuesday, American leaders will be scrutinizing him for hints of future stances on crucial issues, from Chinese military intentions to the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.
But none is more important -- and for now, more opaque -- than the question of where Mr. Xi and the next generation of leaders want to take China's economy, which is still growing rapidly but shows signs of stress and structural instability, economists say.
Mr. Xi's cross-country swing, from Washington to an Iowa farm town to Los Angeles, comes at a politically charged moment in American relations with China. China's economic competition with the United States has already become a theme in this year's Republican presidential primaries, and President Obama has toughened his tone on Chinese trade and fiscal issues.
In meetings with Mr. Xi at the White House on Tuesday, a stock list of economic demands -- that China lower barriers to American investment, build a consumer-driven economy that would buy more American imports and allow the renminbi to rise against the dollar more quickly -- seems likely to dominate Mr. Obama's side of the conversation, according to officials in Washington.
For his part, Mr. Xi, introducing himself to the American public, will showcase a down-home personality in contrast to that of China's stoic current president, Hu Jintao. He will announce some business deals with American companies and, like every Chinese visitor, pledge to improve bilateral relations. But given the domestic pressures over this year's once-a-decade leadership transition in China, the odds that Mr. Xi will accede publicly to Mr. Obama's requests are practically nil.
There is a longer-term debate about reforms going on even now, however. In recent months, some Communist Party elites have privately debated the necessity of those reforms with renewed vigor; some of the discussion has crept into public discourse, and there are a growing number of attacks by intellectuals and former officials on what they call the "vested interests" that threaten to take China further down the road of crony capitalism.
First Published February 12, 2012 12:01 am
