President Xi Jinping
Gov. Jay Inslee announced Sept. 16 that Seattle has been confirmed as the first stop for Chinese President Xi Jinping and his delegation who will be visiting the United States next week.
Gov. Inslee, who visited China in 2013 as part of a trade mission to Asia, invited President Xi to Washington State in recognition of the state’s strong economic, academic and cultural ties to China. The governor wrote President Xi to say there were significant opportunities to work together on business, research and climate action.
“Over the years, Washington companies have developed strong ties with China, and hundreds of millions of citizens use products from Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and other Washington companies on a daily basis,” Inslee wrote. “We know that our ties with the Chinese Academy of Sciences are just the beginning of a relationship that will allow the carbon pollution reduction goals the U.S. and China recently established to become a reality.”
Numerous cities throughout Washington and China have established sister-city and friendship relationships including Fuzhou and Tacoma, Kent and Yangzhou, DuPont and Qinghai City, Seattle and Chongqing, Spokane and Jilin, and Lakewood and Danzhou.
President Xi will be the fourth consecutive Chinese leader to visit Seattle – Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao before him all came to the region due to the importance of Seattle’s relationship with China.
President Xi will be in Seattle September 22-24. He will visit a few locations throughout the region, including Boeing’s Paine Field, Microsoft’s main campus, and Lincoln High School in Tacoma. He will also meet with business and government leaders from across the U.S. and offer his only policy speech of his trip at a dinner banquet where dignitaries such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will be in attendance.
The 30-person welcoming committee includes leaders from the state which will includeSatya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft; Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks; Jerry Lee, Chairman of MulvannyG2; and Assunta Ng, Founder and Publisher of Seattle Chinese Post and Northwest Asian Weekly. (end)