Hot button issues such as US-China tensions, the valuation of the renminbi and China’s veto of a UN resolution on Syria are likely to dominate US television networks as China’s vice-president begins his visit to Washington.
But at the weekend, Beijing started serving US citizens its own side of the story, as China Central Television, the national broadcaster, launched US-produced programming.
The Heat, a political talk show that aired for the first time on Saturday night, focused on Xi Jinping’s stopover in Iowa tomorrow, highlighting the low unemployment rate in the Midwestern state, as its agricultural exports to China soar, and praising Mr Xi’s “sense of kinship with the people of Iowa”, where he spent a week in 1985.