China's Vice President Xi Jinping made his first public appearance in two weeks on Saturday following swirling speculation about the whereabouts of Beijing's leader-in-waiting. Xi looked relaxed in television pictures which showed him visiting a university -- his first public outing since intense speculation about his health surfaced after he cancelled meetings with four foreign dignitaries this month, including visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He was accompanied by a trio of top party bosses for his visit to China Agricultural University in Beijing for "activities marking this year's National Science Popularisation Day", state run Xinhua said. Xi was joined by Liu Yunshan, head of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, Li Yuanchao, head of the party's powerful Organisation Department which appoints and controls personnel at every level of government and industry, and state councillor Liu Yandong, the news agency said. In lengthy television footage aired on the 1900 (1100 GMT) bulletin on the state-run China Central Television, Xi greeted university officials, met students and gave a speech in front of a crowd which contained a handful of media. Two pictures released by Xinhua showed a relaxed Xi speaking to a group of men at the university. They were also posted on the government website and were carried by several domestic online news portals. China's tightly controlled state-run media has ignored Xi's disappearance from public view, focusing instead on a row over Japan's purchase of the disputed Diaoyu islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku islands. A Xinhua report on Xi's visit to the university focused on him promoting a campaign on "food safety issues", and made no mention of the vice president's previous disappearance from public view. His unexplained disappearance came at a highly sensitive time for China, which is gearing up for a generational handover of power. On Thursday, he made his first public communication in nearly two weeks when state media said he had "expressed condolences on the death of old party comrade Huang Rong", who died on September 6 -- a day after Xi missed a planned meeting with Clinton.
