Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to the US on Thursday for his first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. This will mark his eighth trip to the US. 

Here is a timeline of Xi’s seven previous visits:

Xi’s first trip to the US dates back to 1985, when he was a county Communist Party committee secretary. Xi led a small delegation from northern Hebei Province on a research trip to Iowa to learn about US agriculture.

In the 1990s, Xi made two trips to the US, as party chief in Fuzhou, Fujian Province. He visited a number of American cities to learn about urban construction and city planning.

In 2006, as party chief of Zhejiang Province, Xi visited Washington DC, New York and New Jersey to promote closer economic cooperation between Zhejiang Province and the states.

Xi came back in 2012 as China’s vice president, aiming at strengthening the China-US relationship. He also visited the American family that hosted him in Iowa during his first trip in 1985.‍

In 2013, Xi, President of China, met with then US President Barack Obama in California just three months after taking office.

In 2015, he finally made his first state visit to the US, visiting Microsoft to meet CEOs of tech companies including Alibaba, IBM and Facebook. He also gave a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.