When former Chinese president Hu Jintao visited the US in 2006, his first stop was a Boeing plant in Seattle. After his speech, one of the factory workers gave Mr Hu a bear hug and placed a Boeing baseball cap on his head. As the crowd stood to applaud, Alan Mulally, then chief executive of the company’s airline division, pumped his fist in the air and shouted: “China rocks!”
Nearly a decade later, China’s current president Xi Jinping will also kick-off a US visit later this month in Seattle, which will include private sit-down with some of the luminaries of the US tech industry. A dozen CEOs — including Apple’s Tim Cook and IBM’s Ginni Rometty — have been invited to meet the Chinese leader in a session hosted by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The heads of some of China’s own internet leaders such as Alibaba and Baidu will also attend.
Yet Mr Xi will find himself in a very different and more charged political atmosphere. The meeting with American tech executives is fraught with political symbolism because it will take place as Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over many issues central to 21st century capitalism — cyber crime, intellectual property rights, spying, market access and governance of the internet.