With edge, US greets China's heir apparent

Washington: China's vice president and likely future leader, Xi Jinping, embarked on a get-to-know-you tour of the United States on Tuesday, with a day of meetings from the White House to the Pentagon. But he was met with blunt criticism from his host, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who declared that the United States and China could cooperate "only if the game is fair."

Mr. Biden presented a long list of grievances - ranging from theft of intellectual property and human rights abuses to China's refusal to back United Nations sanctions against Syria - during a toast at a State Department lunch, striking a sober and businesslike mood in a stately dining room decorated with pink and red roses for Valentine's Day.

"As Americans, we welcome competition," Mr. Biden said as the Chinese vice president listened with a poker face. "But cooperation, as you and I have spoken about, can only be mutually beneficial if the game is fair."

On the list of American concerns, Mr. Biden said, were China's artificially depressed currency and conditions imposed by the Chinese that require foreign companies to turn over technology in return for doing business in China. He raised the issue of jailed Chinese dissidents and said about Syria, "We strongly disagreed with China and Russia's veto of a resolution against the unconscionable violence being perpetrated" by the government.

Mr. Xi's toast - a standard diplomatic script that repeated Chinese demands for "mutual respect" and urged the United States to avoid protectionism - added to the sense of an American lecture, as did the ensuing translation of Mr. Biden's remarks, which stretched out his points in the pin-drop silence. Mr. Xi stood by with clasped hands and smiled. There were moments, though, when the room broke up in laughter at some of Mr. Biden's quips.

The United States has been stiffening its language toward China in recent months, most notably in President Obama's visit to Asia last November, and again during his State of the Union address last month, when he challenged China to play by the same economic rules as other countries.

But Mr. Biden's remarks were a vivid reminder that Mr. Xi's visit comes during an election year, when the White House is eager to appeal to manufacturing workers who view China's trade policy with deep suspicion. It also wants to avoid being painted as weak on China by Republican challengers.

Some of Mr. Biden's message echoed the meeting Mr. Xi had with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office, an administration official said. The president pressed him on trade practices and China's currency, as well as on Syria, though he thanked China for its support of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

In a brief appearance with Mr. Xi, Mr. Obama was more diplomatic, though he, too, said he wanted to make sure "everybody is working by the same rules of the road when it comes to the world economic system."

Balancing domestic political concerns over China with the desire to cultivate relations with a future Chinese leader was never going to be easy. Part of the challenge, officials said, was that the Chinese government did not want Mr. Xi, who is facing his own delicate political transition, to be exposed to questions. So it fell to Mr. Biden to register America's complaints in the somewhat incongruous setting of a Champagne toast.

"How do you have a visit where we don't get into a tit-for-tat with the man who is going to be running China for the next 10 years, which is something we don't want to do, but is tougher to avoid during an election year?" said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former China policy maker in the White House. "Both sides are aware of that risk."

Administration officials had earlier put particular emphasis on Mr. Xi's stop at the Pentagon, where he met with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. Mr. Xi holds the title of vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, but remains a civilian official, making his visit to the Pentagon unusual, officials said.

China and the United States have had a strained military relationship, with China balking at Mr. Obama's reassertion of the American military presence in Asia. But the Pentagon said Mr. Xi and Mr. Panetta reaffirmed the need for a "healthy, stable and reliable military-to-military relationship."

Mr. Xi's trip also comes at a delicate moment in Chinese politics. Except for Mr. Xi and one other senior official, Li Keqiang, the members of the most powerful policy-making group in the Communist Party, the nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo, are expected to leave their posts in the fall. The selection of their replacements is a secretive process.

So a kind of court intrigue is the backdrop for Mr. Xi's trip, and even Mr. Xi, 58, does not have his position locked up yet. He is expected to replace President Hu Jintao, who has fulfilled the understood limit of 10 years in office. But a serious misstep could derail his political ambitions, which have been carefully nurtured from his first political job in Beijing as an aide to an army general to stints in top party posts in the booming provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.

Above all, it was economic issues that American officials were keen to address with Mr. Xi. After visiting the Pentagon, he showed up with Mr. Biden at the United States Chamber of Commerce to preside over a meeting of more than 20 business leaders from both countries. Outside, hundreds of protesters held up signs and flags and shouted for the Chinese to end their repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Inside, Mr. Biden again reiterated his desire that "the rules of the game are understood, agreed upon and followed."

Mr. Xi acknowledged the economic concerns and said: "The Chinese side has taken steps to address them and will continue to do so. We hope the U.S. side will take steps to address Chinese concerns." That included lifting restrictions on high-tech exports to China, he said.

Cheng Li, a scholar of Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution, said: "I think we should remember that he has two different audiences. One is the international audience, the U.S. audience, and the other is the domestic audience. For him, the domestic audience is more important."

Mr. Xi's visit began causing an uproar in parts of Washington on Monday, when he flew into town and attended a dinner whose guests included Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft. That day, hundreds of people gathered outside the White House to denounce Chinese policies in Tibet. Several protesters were arrested after they unfurled a large banner at Arlington Memorial Bridge that said, "Tibet Will Be Free." Some held up photos of Tibetans who had self-immolated in recent months out of frustration at Chinese rule; the most recent act was by a monk, Lobsang Gyatso, 19, on Monday.

Other dissident voices have been making plans to be heard. Among them is Yu Jie, a prominent writer who left China for Washington with his family last month because he feared for his life, he said. Mr. Yu said he had been tortured by security officers and had lived under house arrest.

"I want to express my opinion freely now that I'm in a free country," Mr. Yu said in an interview.

Like several prominent Chinese dissidents, Mr. Yu was a member of an unofficial Christian church in China.

Suzan D. Johnson Cook, the United States ambassador for international religious freedom, was denied a visa to visit China earlier this month, Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Virginia Republican, said Tuesday at a Congressional hearing on two Christian dissidents imprisoned in China, Gao Zhisheng and Guo Quan.