By Simon Mann
ALMOST three decades after he first feasted on corn-raised American beef as a visiting official from China's hog-farming region of Hebei, Xi Jinping was set to return to Muscatine, Iowa today to sink his teeth into tenderloin, spring rolls and bacon-wrapped scallops.
This time, he was to do so as the man destined to lead China, the world's most populous nation and second-biggest economy, a mantle he could hold for more than a decade.
Bound for glory … the Chinese Vice-President, Xi Jinping, was billeted with local farmers when he first visited Iowa in 1985.Credit: Reuters
His return was being hailed by the Iowa Governor, Terry Branstad, as the biggest thing to hit Muscatine since Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit, and likened to the Iowa farm tour of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev two decades earlier.
''The fact that he's going to be the leader of China, he obviously has a very friendly and positive feeling about Iowa,'' Mr Branstad said, sensing future opportunity.
The Chinese Vice-President's American ties may be modest but he has long enjoyed Hollywood westerns and US basketball, and has a daughter attending Harvard University under a pseudonym.
He insisted on adding Iowa to his jammed US itinerary to reacquaint himself with the small Midwest town that he visited with a posse of Communist Party officials in 1985, ostensibly to study US techniques in agricultural production.
During that trip he was billeted with the Dvorchaks, staying in their university-bound sons' former bedroom that was still decorated with Star Trek prints.
The farming couple have since retired to Florida but told Associated Press they were returning to Iowa for Mr Xi's hour-long visit, reconnecting with their Chinese guest and their former neighbours.
''I'm flabbergasted that he would take time out of his busy schedule and come back to Muscatine,'' Eleanor Dvorchak, 72, said. The family took in Mr Xi, then 31, for two nights.
As well as a formal dinner in Des Moines, the US Agriculture Secretary ,Tom Vilsack, was hosting Mr Xi at a US-China agriculture symposium. The Chinese delegation was later headed for Los Angeles where Mr Xi will meet California business leaders and is expected to attend a Lakers basketball game on Friday, a point of common interest in his talks with the President, Barack Obama, at the White House yesterday.
With several points of tension in the US-China relationship providing a backdrop to their discussions - namely China's undervalued currency, US re-engagement in Asia and cyber security - the two men chatted amiably in the Oval Office before Mr Xi visited the State Department and Pentagon.
At the State Department, Mr Xi defended China's human rights record, though he said there was ''room for improvement''.
At the same time as the likely successor to President Hu Jintao was embarking on his Washington charm offensive, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, was being grilled by the Senate armed services committee over defence cuts and on whether China was America's friend or foe.
Asked by the Republican senator Lindsey Graham whether Chinese hacking of US defence systems could be considered a hostile act, General Dempsey replied: ''I would consider it to be a crime. I think there are other measures that could be taken in cyber that would rise to the level of a hostile act.''
Asked what they were, he continued: ''Attacking our critical infrastructure.''
A committee member shot back: ''And that could be a hostile act?''
General Dempsey: I think so.
Senator Graham: Allowing us to respond in kind?
Dempsey: Well, in my view, that's right - yes.
Graham: So, I'm going to have lunch with the Vice-President of China in about 20 minutes … so what do you want me to tell him?
Dempsey replied: Happy Valentine's Day.