Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visited a farming community in ((the Midwestern state of)) Iowa Wednesday, 27 years after he first visited the area as a mid-level official.The man presumed to be China's next president spent an hour sipping tea with residents in the town of Muscatine, and many said he remembered faces and recited events from his previous visit in 1985. Among those who met with Xi was local resident Tom Hoopes, whose farm Xi visited during that earlier trip to study U.S. agricultural practices. Xi, who concludes his U.S. tour with a visit to Los Angeles Thursday, stressed his interest in person-to-person contacts during a formal dinner later Wednesday in the Iowa state capital, Des Moines.
At the dinner, hosted by state Governor Terry Branstad, Xi said he is in the United States to advance cooperative relations. In another move likely to be popular among American farmers, officials traveling with Xi announced plans to purchase $4.3 billion worth of U.S. soybeans. The 12-metric-ton purchase will be China's largest such deal to date.