Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao will be the guest of honor Saturday at an official state luncheon in Waikiki during his first visit to the islands. State plans Waikiki
luncheon to honor
China’s vice presidentBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comHu, who is seen as the successor to Jiang Zemin as Chinese Communist Party chief later this year and as president in 2003, will arrive Saturday morning at Hickam Air Force Base and be greeted by Gov. Ben Cayetano.
The arrival will be closed to the public because of security concerns.
Following the luncheon at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, to which 200 people have been invited, Hu will visit the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.
He will leave Hickam for New York on Sunday to visit "Ground Zero," where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The last visit by a Chinese president was in 1997, when current leader Jiang stopped here en route to the first Sino-American summit since Beijing's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy forces in Tiananmen Square.
Jiang also spent a little more than 24 hours on Oahu. However, his arrival at Hickam was open to about 200 members of the local Chinese community. Cayetano held a state dinner for him during his visit, at Washington Place, which drew more than 100 human rights demonstrators.
It was Jiang's second visit to Hawaii. He had also come to the islands when he was mayor of Shanghai. In 1997, Jiang was able to try his hand at hula and swam for an hour in the waters off the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
A private gift exchange session is planned for Hu.
Hu will meet with congressional leaders on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., and with Secretary of State Colin Powell over dinner later that day.
On Wednesday, Hu will meet separately with Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush, and make a speech on U.S.-Chinese relations at a private dinner meeting.
Hu is expected to press for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian territory when he meets Bush.
A Hu spokeswoman has said Israel should also lift all travel restrictions on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who remains trapped in his Ramallah headquarters in the West Bank.
China is a member of the United Nations Security Council, which demanded in March and early April an immediate cease-fire and an Israeli withdrawal from all West Bank cities "without delay."
Star-Bulletin news services
contributed to this report.