From the Intelligence, I'm Jason Palmer. This is episode seven of a new eight-part podcast series from the Economist.

The show is called The Prince, and it's about the leader of China, Xi Jinping.

If you haven't heard the previous episodes, or if you can't wait for the next one,

you can hear the whole series now by searching for The Prince on your podcast app.

At an airport in Des Moines, Iowa, a passenger plane had just touched down.

Luciferoni walked across the tarmac to meet it. On board was a small group of visiting Chinese officials.

At that time, you could actually walk onto the plane and greet the passenger as they would get up.

It was 1985. Airport security was way more lax.

Lucifer worked for the governor of Iowa. He was in charge of showing the group around.

Lucifer assumed the oldest member of the delegation would be its leader.

In fact, it wasn't. Mr. Xi was a much younger guy than I anticipated.

Xi Jinping was 31 at the time. He was a county-level party secretary in Herbe province,

and the leader of a group of five Communist Party officials.

They brought a lot of suitcases. Most of the suitcases were gifts.

China in 1985 was not what is China today.

And the thoughtfulness of then to bring gifts at that point and truly leaving a memento of their visit at each stop,

I think it was truly incredible.

They might have brought a lot of gifts, but they didn't bring much clothing.

I then learned about them washing their shirts and their socks in the hotel rooms to make sure that everything was clean and dry by the time the next meeting,

because they basically were outfitted with one western suit, which they weren't pretty much all the time.

This was Xi's first visit to America. He and the rest of the delegation had grown up on a steady diet of anti-American propaganda at home.

And Lucas says they were a little afraid of what they might find when they stepped outside of their hotel.

...