Vice President Biden Pledges Candor in Talks With China's Xi

Vice President Joe Biden pledged to tackle U.S.-China differences head-on as he welcomed Beijing's leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping for talks on Tuesday that could set the tone for relations between the two rival powers over the next decade. Xi's White House visit was the centerpiece of a U.S. trip that could help the Chinese vice president boost his international standing and show he is capable of steering his country's crucial relationship with Washington.

"We're not always going to see eye to eye," Biden told Xi as they sat side-by-side at a conference table. "But we have very important economic and political concerns that warrant we work together." Xi's visit comes at a time when ties between Beijing and Washington -- the world's two biggest economies -- have been buffeted by strains over trade, currency, human rights and military intentions.

He will meet later with President Barack Obama, who faces the challenge of managing increasingly irritable ties with Beijing in a U.S. election year when voters' anti-China sentiment is running high. Outside the White House gates, a large group of anti-Beijing protesters marched and chanted slogans against China's crackdown in Tibet - an issue that U.S. officials said would figure in talks with Xi.

Activists say China violently stamps out Tibetan religious freedom and culture in Tibet, a vast, remote and largely mountainous region of western China in the Himalayans that has been under Chinese control since 1950. Waving Tibetan flags, demonstrators protested against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chanting , "shame on CCP, down down CCP", and urged Obama to lend his support for Tibet. Xi is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit the White House since Obama launched a new U.S. "pivot" toward Asia in November to counterbalance China's increasing assertiveness in the region.