{
  "id": "R42342",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R42342",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 416041,
      "date": "2012-02-06",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T00:16:33.120911",
      "title": "China\u2019s Vice President Xi Jinping Visits the United States: What Is at Stake?",
      "summary": "Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (pronounced Shee Jin-ping) is scheduled to visit the United States in mid-February, 2012, returning Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.\u2019s August 2011 visit to China, which Xi hosted. The fact that Xi is the heir apparent to China\u2019s current top leader, Hu Jintao, who is scheduled to retire in the coming year, makes this more than an ordinary vice-presidential visit. Xi\u2019s trip is designed to help him build relationships with American policymakers and legislators and introduce himself to the American business community and the American people on the eve of his becoming China\u2019s top leader. As important to the Chinese side, the trip could also play an important role in helping boost Xi\u2019s stature back home, where he is so far known as much for having a famous father, early Communist Party revolutionary Xi Zhongxun, and a famous wife, military folk singer Peng Liyuan, as for his own achievements.\nXi is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House on February 14, 2012. He will also spend time with his official host, Vice President Biden, and meet with Congressional leaders and members of the cabinet. Xi is scheduled to give a policy speech in Washington on February 15, 2012, and then travel to Iowa, a state that has seen its agricultural exports to China soar in recent years. In Muscatine, Iowa, Xi will reunite with people he first met in 1985, when he visited with a provincial animal-feed delegation. In Des Moines, he will meet with Iowa\u2019s governor, Terry E. Branstad, whom he also met on the 1985 trip, when Branstad was serving his first term as governor. The last leg of Xi\u2019s visit to the United States will take him to Los Angeles on February 16 and 17, 2012. There he will meet with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa and California Governor Jerry Brown, attend a trade and economic forum, and take in a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game at the Staples Center. Vice President Biden will accompany Xi throughout his time in Los Angeles.\nIf all goes as the Chinese leadership has planned, seven to nine months after Xi returns to China, he will be named to the top position in the Chinese Communist Party, General Secretary. He is expected to be named State President in March 2013. Barring the emergence of serious splits in the leadership, he is expected to hold both posts for two five-year terms. Xi is also on track to become the head of China\u2019s military, perhaps as early as this year. Even with all of those posts, Xi\u2019s power will be more circumscribed than that of an American president; he will serve as the first among equals on the Communist Party\u2019s top decision-making body, and will need consensus from his colleagues for all major decisions. Efforts to consolidate authority could make Xi\u2019s first years in power unpredictable. Nonetheless, China is presenting him as the man likely to serve as China\u2019s top official until March 2023.",
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      "typeId": "REPORTS",
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  "topics": [
    "Foreign Affairs"
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}