Chinese president Xi Jinping has arrived in the UK as Britain rolled out the red carpet for the high-profile state visit.
Mr Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will stay as guests of the Queen at Buckingham Palace, attend a glittering state banquet and dine with Prime Minister David Cameron at Chequers during their official four-day trip.
The Government is pulling out all the stops to court the leader of the world's second-largest economy, with a packed schedule for Mr Xi including an away day to Manchester with Mr Cameron.
Mr Xi and his wife arrived at Heathrow where he was presented with a bouquet of flowers by the welcoming party.
Downing Street has rejected accusations of "kowtowing" to Beijing for the sake of commercial deals, insisting that no subject will be off the table in talks during the state visit.
Mr Cameron will hold two days of talks with Mr Xi during a visit expected to be dominated by significant agreements on Chinese investment in UK infrastructure as well as opportunities for British companies to seek business in the growing Chinese market.
Among the business deals set to be sealed is an accord that could see the Chinese take a key role in constructing nuclear plants at Hinkley Point in Somerset, Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex.
But the Prime Minister has also been urged to raise issues ranging from human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang to China's dumping of steel on the world markets and concerns over cyber-attacks believed to originate in the People's Republic.
In the Commons Mr Cameron said the UK's relationship with China was "at such a high level that there is no subject off the table" and added that "of course" the steel industry would be discussed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here