Chinese President Xi Jinping set off on Tuesday for his state visit to the United States, to embark on another trans-Pacific historic meeting. Prior to the trip, Xi's schedule was very busy, attending several meetings in one week. He presided over the 16th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms, met with U.S. delegates attending the Seventh China-U.S. Business Leaders' and Former Senior Officials' Dialogue, and also met with News Corp. executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch.

    At such an important moment, every detail of Xi's words and actions are interpreted as "weather vanes," or "windows" through which the outside world can perceive China. As anticipated, Xi released four important messages.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at a press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2014. (Xinhua/liu Weibing)

    No. 1 China will be more open to the outside world

    Xi presided over the 16th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform. The major themes included " furthering the opening-up policy," which has been in place for more than 30 years.

    President Xi took this opportunity to show that China will continuously and resolutely implement more active opening-up policies, seek international capital and technologies, and perfect the mechanism for opening-up.

    This round of the Comprehensively Deepening Reform meeting made it clear that using foreign capital will be China's long-term and "unchanging" policy, China will continuously safeguard the lawful interest of foreign businesses operating in China, and seek to provide better services to such businesses.

    China's increasing openness is not only evident in foreign investment, but also in its attitude to foreign media. Xi told Murdoch during his visit on Sept. 18 that China welcomes the international media to come and introduce China's development to the world, helping the world seize the opportunities in China while enhancing mutual understanding and cooperation between Chinese people and the world.

    Xi's message was clear: China's opening-up policy works in all-around ways.

    "Expanding China's opening-up" is not only an attitude to the world, but also a necessity for China's own development. In China, reform and opening-up are interwoven and complementary to each other. Xi's recent remarks show that China will not halt its opening up policy or reform.

    No. 2 China's economy is capable of retaining a medium-high growth rate in the long run

    Some Western media critics began to badmouth China this year, when Chinese economic growth slowed down. However, Xi offered his insights to this phenomenon as he told the U.S. business leaders and former senior officials on Sept. 17 that China's economy still has a huge potential, apart from room for adjustment and internal flexibility. Thus, all conditions are in place to keep China's growth at a medium-high rate.

    In fact, Xi already made similar remarks earlier this year at the Boao Forum for Asia that China's economic growth has entered a "new normal." He said that in reviewing the Chinese economy, one should not only pay attention to the growth rate, but also the size of economy itself, since the current seven-percent growth rate will mean a larger increment than double-digit growth in the past.

    Being confident in China's future growth, Xi has laid out a clear blueprint. China will continue to deepen reform, actively change the model of economic development, let markets play a decisive role in resource allocation, have the government play a better role, continuously increase the quality and benefit of the economy, and enhance the growing momentum for economic development.