Week ahead: Tech industry welcomes Chinese president

Chinese President Xi Jinping is slated to deliver a policy speech Wednesday in front of U.S. tech executives in Seattle ahead of his visit to the White House later in the week.

Xi will also attend a roundtable discussion with executives from U.S. businesses, including tech companies Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, as well as Chinese companies Alibaba, Baidu and Lenovo.

The Seattle stop has reportedly rankled some in the Obama administration, with the event seen as an attempt to show off China’s sway within the U.S. tech industry, even amid Internet restrictions in the country and a flood of cyber attacks in the U.S. allegedly orchestrated by China.

{mosads}The Paulson Institute will lead Wednesday’s roundtable.

“This is an important opportunity for conversation about the U.S.-China business relationship, China’s economy, and the future of Chinese reforms,” said former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who established the Institute. 

Some major U.S. tech CEOs were noticeably absent from the roundtable list, including those from Google and Facebook, whose services are largely blocked in China. Both companies were reportedly invited to participate.

The Chinese leader is also expected to stop at the headquarters of Microsoft and Boeing during his visit, as many U.S. businesses see huge growth potential in the Chinese market.

Xi’s visit to the United States will end with him meeting President Obama and a state dinner on Friday.

Officials have said no sanctions against China for hacking will come ahead of the visit. The sanctions are considered to be one of the few options available in retaliation for recent cyberattacks in the United States, which the government privately blames on individuals in China.

On the other side of the country, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and other members of his committee will participate in a roundtable about copyright policy in the heart of the recording industry — Nashville, Tenn. The meeting is one of the many listening sessions the committee is holding as it reviews copyright laws. The tech industry has pressed Goodlatte to hold one in Silicon Valley as well.

And on Friday, the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on media ownership issues. In comments published Friday, Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) told Politico that he was interested in looking at issues of minority ownership and the caps placed in different regions of the country.

“Because the marketplace is certainly changing rapidly, probably while we’ve been standing here, and I’m not convinced that the rules they have in place on ownership make sense in today’s market,” he told The Hill this week. “So we’re going to find out, so we’ll have people come and testify.”

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