Chinese President Xi Jinping heads to Washington amid tension

Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in Beijing in November. In Washington, Mr Xi will have a working dinner with a small group including the US President.

Chinese President Xi Jinping flies in to Seattle tomorrow for a four-day visit to the US to discuss crucial economic and strategic issues with Barack Obama — but with little expectation of significant breakthroughs.

The presidents held lengthy talks together in June 2013 at Sunnylands ranch in California, triggering hopes of negotiated progress on core global concerns.

But since then, the only major agreement came last year, when they jointly announced unilateral measures towards reducing greenhouse gases by 2030.

Tensions have instead increased, over China’s South China Sea island construction and the global economy — including the yuan, which was recently devalued, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank founded by Beijing, which Washington has eschewed.

But a bilateral investment treaty is close to conclusion.

Starting in Seattle provides a measure of comfort for Chinese presidents, for several of the largest US companies, whose core interests lie in China, are based there, including Microsoft and Boeing.

China’s most treasured “old friend” in America, Henry Kissinger, will be a guest at a dinner to be addressed by Mr Xi, who will also attend the US-China Internet Industry Forum alongside ­Chinese champions such as Jack Ma of Alibaba and Robin Li of Baidu.

In Washington, Mr Xi will have a working dinner with a small group at the White House including Mr Obama, hold a joint press conference, and attend a state dinner.

The Chinese leader will then shift to New York to focus on the UN — chairing the opening session of a meeting on women’s empowerment, 20 years after a significant conference in Beijing on this issue, and speaking at the UN’s 70th anniversary session.

Mr Xi is no stranger to the US, having visited at least four times. He will be accompanied by his wife, Peng Liyuan. Their daughter Xi Mingze is a Harvard University graduate.

No substantive change is likely to emerge in the stand-off between China, its neighbours and the US over their overlapping claims in the South China Sea.

But the presidents might be ready to agree a path for the management of their disagreement, for keeping each other mutually informed about military movements there.

The US continues to accuse China of harbouring hackers and of cyber espionage. And China has recently introduced a new National Security Law which Washington believes threatens American business operations in China by requiring all information systems to be “secure and controllable”.

Mr Xi wishes to entrench China-US relations as a “great power relationship,” and to this effect would like to draw Washington in to a role in his large, ambitious suite of “New Silk Road” visions for the Asia region, including the AIIB.

The talks provide an opportunity to align the countries’ ambitions for trade liberalisation — with the US having formerly, but to date fruitlessly, championed the Trans Pacific Partnership, and China the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

China aims to reduce the “negative list” of sectors Washington wants declared off limits in the BIT they are negotiating — which would boost the countries’ economic enmeshment.

Mr Xi will seek to convince the Americans that the slowing of China’s growth is due to the planned structural shift towards the services and consumption sectors.

The leaders may discuss Japan’s passing of security bills permitting its military to be deployed overseas to aid allies.

Mr Xi arrives as Americans are preparing for presidential primaries — when candidates typically vie to appear most muscular on international issues. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has said “China is taking our jobs, they’re taking our money”.

Last Friday, Mr Xi told News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch in Beijing that Western media were “welcome” in China despite its frequent blocking of many foreign websites including that of News Corp’s Wall Street Journal — another issue likely to be raised in talks by Mr Obama.