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Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is having a somewhat contentious visit to the U.S. this week and it doesn't sound like it's going to get much better.
Bloomberg reports that Xi is expected to receive a "chilly reception" when he meets with congressional leaders today who are looking to land jabs over China's trade and currency policies. “The rhetoric out of the Congress on China is much more muscular and confrontational because they know they’re not running China policy, the White House is running China policy,” said Robert Kapp, the former president of the U.S.-China Business Council. Because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority leader Mitch McConnel and House Speaker John Boener are expected to ding Xi on a range of issues, Kapp tells Bloomberg “It’s a bad cop, good cop situation.”
The only problem with that analogy is it presumes Xi's reception with the White House was cordial. According to report from Xi's meeting with President Obama and Vice President Biden, that was far from the case. Sky News' China correspondent Holly Williams reported that President Obama "was quite frank, quite hard with Xi Jinping. He pushed him on Iran and Syria, he pushed him on human rights and criticised China on economic issues."