DES MOINES, United States - Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping arrived Wednesday night in Des Moines, capital of the state Iowa, on the second leg of his official visit to the United States.

Xi flew to Iowa after wrapping up his visit to Washington D.C. He joined dozens of ordinary Americans for tea at a local house in Muscatine, a small city in Iowa, before arriving in Des Moines.

Most of the participants at the tea reception were Xi's old acquaintances back from his 1985 visit, when Xi, then a local official from China's northern province of Hebei, visited Iowa as a member of an agricultural exchange delegation, and stayed with a local family in Muscatine to better understand Iowan farm life.

Xi will visit Los Angeles in the US state of California after Iowa.