Like many who have met Chinese President Xi Jinping in person, Stephen Orlins, a veteran China hand, says he was impressed by how the Chinese leader lets his "human quality" show, which makes people around him feel at ease and comfortable.

Orlins, who leads the National Committee on US-China Relations, had met Xi a few times before the Chinese leader took office in March. Once was in 2006 when the committee hosted Xi, the then Party secretary in Zhejiang Province, at the opening ceremony of Zhejiang Week in New York.

Orlins presented Xi with a book with photos of his father Xi Zhongxun's visit to the US in 1980. Xi Zhongxun, a Communist revolutionary and former vice-premier, was a member of the first delegation of Chinese provincial leaders to visit the US as guests of the committee.

Xi opened the book and flipped through the pages with Orlins, asking questions about the photos. "Who was this? Where was this one taken?" Orlins recalled Xi asking with curiosity.

"There were 500 people in the audience and I was with him at the head table," Orlins recalled. "He was perfectly comfortable in showing his human quality; it was a very human interactive exchange. It was quite impressive."

A similar scene took place last February when Xi, then Vice President of China, visited Iowa during a week-long state visit to the US.

Xi visited the Kimberley family farm and sat with them in their living room, talking to the family about their daily life, showing great interest and attention to his hosts. Martha Kimberley, wife of the owner of the farm, Rick, said Xi was a "personable" person who genuinely cared about the family's farming life and it showed in every question he asked.

On June 7-8, the Chinese president will meet with his US counterpart Barack Obama at Sunnylands, a desert retreat in Rancho Mirage, California, for a two-day summit, the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies since Xi took office in March and Obama won re-election in November. The event carries great significance with its timing and – what many call – "rare setting" at the 200-acre desert retreat for such a meeting.

"It takes them away from the things that go on in Washington and allows them to focus on each other," said Orlins.

Orlins, however, cautioned against using the term "summit" to describe the meeting, because with such an informal setting outside of Washington, there won't be any official agreements or "deliverables". Rather it's a time for the two to "get to know each other" and listen to concerns and priorities from both countries. In that sense, he said, the public should lower their expectations for this event.

Still, "it is a very big deal", noted Orlins, adding that it both lays a foundation for resolving problems in the future and puts the leaders on the right track to prevent potential conflicts.

"Both sides recognize the importance of the relationship and the need for the president of China and the president of the United States to know each other," said Orlins, who organizes dozens of events related to US-China relations every year through the committee and frequently helps send Congressional delegations to China.

Orlins, a China expert who speaks fluent Mandarin and has been travelling to China for more than three decades for the corporate sector and government, said he was impressed by the fact both leaders were able to have a unique meeting like this – outside of the capital setting and unscripted.

"Just think if 30 or 40 years ago, it would have been impossible to conceive of this kind of interaction, and here we have it occurring in California," said Orlins. "I give both countries' foreign policy advisors high marks for being able to engineer this, both in terms of the politics and scheduling of it."

White House officials said in a press briefing that having this type of "wide-ranging, informal setting for discussions between the two leaders would allow them to cover the broadest possible agenda, but also to forge a working relationship" that both sides will be relying on very much in the years to come.

The two-day event includes more than seven hours of bilateral talks and a private dinner. The "broadest possible agenda" during the talks, according to the White House, will include "issues that are directly relevant to the lives and interests of the American people", ranging from economic growth around the world to some of the leading security challenges the world and two countries face. The situation in North Korea, the on-going necessity of cybersecurity, and the US' rebalancing to Asia policy are among the issues on the agenda.

Orlins is hopeful about the two leaders' talks, citing the two countries over the past 30 years have made great progress in many areas, including economic, military-to-military, and even cyber issues that the two countries recently agree to hold talks on, forming a high-level US-China working group on cybersecurity.

"If a crisis should arrive in the coming months, the fact that they've had this meeting, that they understand each other, that they have interacted, that they know where each other is coming from, will help resolve that crisis," said Orlins.

yuweizhang@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 06/07/2013 page10)