China's Vice President Xi Jinping will visit the White House on February 14, officials said, as the United States seeks to nurture a relationship with the Asian power's presumptive next leader.

The White House said that Xi will meet President Barack Obama for the Valentine's Day talks and also visit California and Iowa, where the 58-year-old paid a formative visit to the United States in 1985.

Xi, who is expected to become China's president in 2013, will also meet Vice President Joe Biden and other senior US officials "to discuss a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues," a White House statement said Monday.

Xi's tour of the United States follows Biden's unusually long five-day visit to China in August, part of efforts by the Obama administration to court the leader-in-waiting about whom little is known in Washington.

The US relationship with China has become increasingly fractious over a range of security and economic issues. On a November trip to Asia, Obama irked Beijing with a robust defense of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

Washington has been pressing Beijing to allow its yuan to rise to a more market oriented level against the dollar and accuses Beijing of engineering an artificially low value of the currency to boost its economy.

Xi will come to the United States during the early throes of the US presidential election race, in which Republican candidates have accused Obama of being intimidated by Beijing on trade and currency issues.

Gary Locke, the US ambassador to China, said last week that Xi was "very personable" but acknowledged that the United States had few insights into how he would differ from President Hu Jintao.

"We really don't know that much about him," Locke told "The Charlie Rose Show" on US public television during a return visit to arrange Xi's trip.

"We don't know how he would respond to some of these economic issues, which is why it's so important that we establish that relationship as quickly as possible," Locke said.

Locke said that China's communist system -- with a politburo announcing collective decisions -- made it difficult to figure out where each leader stood.

"If the past is any guide, the first year or so decisions might be rather reserved and you will not really see any change or departure," Locke said.

Locke said that Xi appeared to have a had a positive impression of the United States from his 1985 trip to Iowa, which he visited on an exchange when he served as a low-ranking office in Hebei County.

"He has fond memories of the Midwest and is very familiar with our agricultural sector," Locke said.

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, a proponent of warmer relations with mainland China, said he has closely watched Xi and did not see "any significant difference from the current leader."

Xi's visit is expected to draw street protests from human rights advocates. China since last year has carried out a sweeping crackdown on dissent and keeps in prison outspoken writer Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

Tibet has also been tense with at least 16 Tibetans -- mostly young monks -- setting themselves on fire since March to protest what they see as restrictions on political and religious freedoms in the predominantly Buddhist region.

Sophie Richardson, the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia decision, said that the Obama administration should make "absolutely, unambiguously clear" to Xi that human rights were central to US-China ties.

She also called on the Obama administration to meet with Chinese dissidents such as Yu Jie, the author of a critical book on Premier Wen Jiabao who fled to the United States this month after suffering what he said was torture.

"The administration has to find a way to make its rhetorical commitment to supporting human rights more real," Richardson said.

"They should hear the views of the people the Chinese government tortures, in addition to those of the Chinese government itself," she said.