Hemingway, mojito and living in poverty: China's Xi Jinping reaches out to US with personal anecdotes

Adding personal anecdotes, a dash of Western culture and even a mention of a mojito to his policy speech in the United States yesterday, President Xi Jinping was trying to come across as an amicable, approachable leader, observers say.

Xi, who was speaking to some 650 business executives and former US diplomat Henry Kissinger in Seattle, said Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea "left a deep impression" on him.

"When I visited Cuba … I visited the pub Hemingway often went to and ordered his favourite drink - rum mixed with mint and ice," he said towards the end of his 35-minute speech.

Prior to touching on thorny issues including cybersecurity and China's slowing economic growth, Xi started his speech with an anecdote from his days in the remote Liangjiahe village in Shaanxi province, highlighting how far the country had come in the past few decades.

"[In the 1960s,] the villagers were so poor they could not afford meat for months," he said. "My dream then was to treat all villagers with a feast of meat."

Observers said the president tried harder than his predecessors to connect with his American audience, but that not all his words hit the mark.