When Xi Jinping begins a week-long visit to the US in Seattle today, the Chinese president will be accorded all the pomp and ceremony of an important world leader. In between Washington state and Washington DC, he will meet a large slice of the American corporate elite and receive a 21-gun salute and a state dinner at the White House.
But underneath the surface, Mr Xi will encounter an America that is itching to be more confrontational towards China over commercial and security issues. From the Pentagon to the justice department, Barack Obama’s administration has been preparing tougher steps to take against China over cyber theft of trade secrets and over its efforts to assert more control in the South China Sea. The White House has so far held off approving the measures, in part for fear they might poison Mr Xi’s visit, but is holding them open as a threat.
“The larger challenge around this visit is that if this type of Chinese behaviour continues and we are only able to get Band-aid cures, at what point do we then begin to impose costs?” says Michael Green, a former Asia director at the White House National Security Council. Even if the Obama administration does not ultimately take harsher steps, he says, Beijing’s actions are “imprinting how the next administration thinks about China”.