By Yanan WANG
Chinese President Xi Jinping has spent the past four years putting brash, wealthy politicians and businessmen in jail. On Thursday he will have to sit down and negotiate with one.
The first face-to-face meeting between Xi and Donald Trump at the US president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida will be a key test of whether the two leaders can overcome their vast differences and develop a personal bond.
The gathering is a gamble for the highly scripted Xi, who risks an unravelling of his carefully constructed image in the face of Trump's notorious unpredictability as they discuss contentious issues ranging from North Korea to trade.
The 63-year-old, who took power in 2012 and was granted the vaunted title of Communist Party "core" in October, is widely considered China's most powerful leader in a generation.
Known best for leading an anti-corruption campaign that has taken down some of the party's most eminent officials, Xi's unyielding approach to governance has invited comparisons to Mao Zedong -- and pointed to possible collisions with Trump.
Their contrasting styles -- reserved versus blunt, rehearsed versus spontaneous, controlled versus turbulent -- could see the pair clash, Hu Xingdou, a Chinese economics professor and expert on corruption, told AFP.
Both men have strong characters, Hu said.
Xi is likely to be more "stable" while political novice Trump could prove to be "reckless" on issues such as China's trade surplus with the US -- a constant source of irritation in Washington and an issue that Trump tweeted will make the talks "difficult".
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