WASHINGTON, April 27: Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao, who is expected to take over as secretary-general of the Communist Party this spring and then to become his country’s president, is due to visit Washington early next week.

Hu, who was due in Honolulu on Saturday, will meet President Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney and congressional leaders. This will be his first visit to the United States and only his second excursion abroad as vice-president: earlier this year, he toured western Europe.

Hu, 59, is described as among the new generation of leaders moving into power in China, and has been working as an understudy to President Jiang Zemin.

Apart from the issue of Taiwan, where the Bush administration has assumed a more aggressive posture than its predecessor government, America’s relations with Beijing have on the whole been cordial and correct.