Vice-President Xi Jinping is to visit the Pentagon during his five-day US tour this week 'to discuss the importance of [the Sino-US] military-to-military relationship', the White House revealed on the eve of his arrival.
Also on the agenda are a Valentine's Day meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House, dinner at the residence of Vice-President Joe Biden, a visit to students of Chinese at a Californian school, and potentially the first attendance of a Chinese state leader at an NBA basketball game.
Xi is due to arrive in Washington this afternoon (US time), with his official timetable of activities beginning the following morning, a programme dominated by meetings with Biden.
Biden is scheduled to formally welcome Xi to the White House tomorrow morning, in the first of at least eight engagements the two politicians have planned this week - a fact highlighted by mainland state media in an apparent effort to show Xi will be well-treated on the US soil.
That begins with 'two hours of conversation and exchange' between Xi and Biden - first with senior US cabinet members and top officials, followed by a smaller tete-a-tete with Biden and his closest advisers.
'And then the vice-president [Biden] will walk Vice-President Xi over to the Oval Office for his meeting with President Obama,' Anthony Blinken, Biden's national security adviser, said in a media briefing on the visit released yesterday.