Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping talks with Rick Kimberley as they sit in the cab of a tractor while touring the Kimberley family farm Thursday in Maxwell, Iowa. Xi reached out to heartland America with billions of dollars in farm deals. Photo: AFP
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping ended the last leg of his five-day official US trip in Los Angeles. He toured the Port of Los Angeles, accompanied by California Governor Jerry Brown and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday.
With $120 billion of goods passing through the port on the way to China, Xi praised it as an example, saying "this is an environmentally friendly green port," that could serve as a model as China is "growing and... greening its own ports."
Xi's tour of Los Angeles included an economic forum and luncheon with US Vice President Joe Biden and Governor Brown on Friday. The governor and LA mayor were set to lobby Xi for more Chinese investment on a planned LA to San Francisco highspeed railway line.
Xi was also expected to announce a deal with DreamWorks to build and operate a studio in Shanghai. As the first high-level Chinese official to visit Los Angeles in 13 years, Xi was to be joined by Villaraigosa Friday night at an NBA game between the LA Lakers and the Phoenix Suns.
The Chinese Vice President earlier paid a visit to Muscatine, a small town in Iowa, where he reconnected with Iowans and recalled fondly his first trip there in 1985.
Chinese analysts say such a personal touch can help develop trust and improve understanding between people in the two countries.
Xi recalled telling the daughter of his hosts, the Dvorchaks, in Muscatine about the Hollywood films he enjoyed, including The Godfather.
"Although I stayed with the Dvorchaks for only two nights, they were two nights when I directly connected with the American people," he said, according to Reuters.
He also hopped onto a tractor on an icy soybean and corn farm in Maxwell, Iowa and declared his love for the "very homey environment."
"Both Chinese and American leaders are aware that a friendly and sustainable relationship between China and the US is largely up to how Chinese people and American people view each other," Jin Canrong, associate dean with the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times, noting that US Vice President Biden sought to interact with Chinese people by having lunch at a small family-run restaurant in Beijing during a visit last year.
Xi dined on local pork and cupcakes during a gala dinner Wednesday in the State Capitol building of Iowa in Des Moines. The state's exports to China shot up by nearly 1,300 percent between 2000 and 2010.
A Chinese business delegation accompanying Xi signed deals including commitments to buy 317 million bushels of soybeans from major US companies, estimated to be worth $4.3 billion.
Xi, in a speech in Des Moines, said that developing a stable agricultural sector was critical for "strong, sustainable and balanced growth" at a time of global economic uncertainty.
US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, receiving Xi at the headquarters of the World Food Prize, called for the two countries to boost food production in poorer nations.
China became the top market for US agricultural goods last year, purchasing $20 billion worth of agricultural exports.
US farm exports to China supported more than 160,000 American jobs last year across a variety of business sectors.