Vice-President Xi Jinping will visit the United States this week. But what exactly will he be doing there - apart from visiting a family he stayed with in Muscatine, Iowa, in 1985 when he visited as an agricultural official, and perhaps watching a National Basketball Association match?
Xi has three missions, said Professor Jin Canrong , deputy dean of Renmin University's school of international relations. The first is to 'give a signal' to the US that, however unfavourable its domestic politics are to bilateral relations, China is still willing to maintain good ties.
His second mission is to develop personal friendships with American leaders, so that they can have a better understanding of each other's political agendas 'in the future'. The phrase 'in the future' is important - it is an open secret that, according to leadership succession practice, Xi will take over as secretary general of the Communist Party, it's top official, later this year, but before the US general election. In this context, 'future' means the two countries' political relationship over the next four or five years at least.
And the third mission, Jin said, would be for Xi to gain a better understanding of American society, and to share China's position with more of its people.