U.S. Gears Up to Reset Tone With Beijing

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is gearing up for this week's visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, expected to become the country's next leader, as a once-in-a-decade chance to set the tone in relations between Washington and Beijing.

The U.S. is looking to strengthen its ties with China by hosting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the man widely expected to succeed Hu Jintao as leader later this year. WSJ's Neil Hickey reports on what Xi's agenda will be during his visit.

But President Barack Obama starts the new relationship in a difficult setting, in the midst of a heated presidential contest that is exerting pressure on the president to accentuate a tough stance toward the Chinese. The White House has muffled expectations of major breakthroughs on any significant issue.
Nonetheless, the administration said it expects to zero in on some of the most contentious issues between the two countries when Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi meet behind closed doors. The visit takes place amid a rolling boil of political crises across the Middle East and Asia, from a looming civil war in Syria to the implications of the leadership succession in North Korea.
In the meeting with President Obama, as well as in sessions with Vice President Joe Biden and others, U.S. officials hope to get a read on how China's heir apparent views everything from sanctions against Iran to currency and trade issues.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted an official state dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao last year.

Particularly telling will be a session planned for Wednesday with the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, a leader of Mr. Obama's opposition, which has relentlessly criticized China for its human-rights policies and its role in international crises.
Moving to deflect political criticism and show a stern side, the White House last week hosted a visit by advocates of expanded human rights in China, and called for improvements from Beijing. Later, Mr. Biden, while traveling in Ohio, boasted that the U.S. economy remained larger than China's.
Chinese leaders also have issued tough talk, with a senior official saying in Beijing Thursday that Mr. Xi would address a U.S.-China "trust deficit."
"Each side wants to take the measure of the other," said June Teufel Dreyer, a professor of political science at the University of Miami.

Xi Jinping smiles during a discussion with U.S. and Chinese business leaders at Beijing Hotel, Aug. 19, 2011.

Describing administration plans Friday for the trip, Anthony Blinken, Mr. Biden's national-security adviser said: "This visit is really an investment in the future of the U.S.-China relationship."
In addition to high-level engagements in Washington, Mr. Xi's itinerary also includes stops later this week in Iowa and California. China observers say the U.S. tour offers Mr. Xi a chance to demonstrate statesmanship and raise his profile at home.
For Mr. Obama, the time spent with Mr. Xi will offer a new view of China. Since taking office, Mr. Obama has had 10 face-to-face meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao, but this will be his first meeting with Mr. Xi.
Mr. Xi has already built rapport with the U.S. vice president. Mr. Xi hosted Mr. Biden on a trip to China last year, accompanying him on a trip to the western province of Sichuan.
A senior Obama administration official said that while the U.S. and China engage on a wide range of issues, the most important are increasingly economic.
"Often, those are the first issues that are brought up, and that we spend the most time discussing," he said.
In the Washington sessions, economic issues are expected to be paramount. The Obama administration for the past three years has urged China to allow its currency to appreciate at a faster pace. A weak yuan boosts China's export sector, making U.S. products less competitive overseas. But the world's two largest economies have found little common ground on the issue.
Officials also hope to take a measure of how Beijing perceives the Pentagon's new strategic focus on the Far East. The U.S. military recently unveiled plans to reposition forces in the Pacific region and invest in military technologies that could serve as a counterweight to China's rising military power.
China publicly objected to new U.S. plans to intermittently assign American forces to a shared base in Australia.
Kenneth Lieberthal, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the trip will give Mr. Xi an opportunity to demonstrate he can handle a high-level visit to the U.S. and represent China internationally.
"That's actually a significant credential for a man who is about to assume the top-level position in China," said Mr. Lieberthal.
It also may give the incoming Chinese leader a chance to project a new image of China to the U.S. Mr. Xi first visited the U.S. in 1985, when he led an agricultural delegation to Iowa, and his trip follows in the footsteps of his predecessor, who visited the U.S. as vice president in 2002.
"This is the first impression of 10 years to come, so this is really important," said Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, which is co-hosting a luncheon in Washington where Mr. Xi will address corporate leaders and policy makers.
That event, Mr. Orlins added, would be a chance for Mr. Xi to speak directly to the U.S. public.
"One of the concerns that I hear repeatedly voiced by Chinese leadership is the media 'filter' by which Americans understand China," he said. "They believe that that filter distorts what's going on. Events like this--where he can directly speak to the American people--are a way for him not to have the filter."
Observers say that sweeping agreements are unlikely, in part because of political considerations both in the U.S. and China. As a vice president, Mr. Xi can't overstep his current authority.
At a roundtable in Washington Thursday, Michael Green, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it would be seen as "presumptuous" for Mr. Xi to make pronouncements on issues that, for now, are still above his pay grade.
Elizabeth Economy, director of Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that both sides "hope that Xi Jinping will inject a new sense of possibility" in relations between Washington and Beijing.
But, she added: "I don't think anybody has any false expectation that this is going to be a transformative moment."
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