What's in a picture? The unspoken messages in Xi Jinping's group portrait with CEOs and senior executives during his first state visit to the US

Chinese President Xi Jinping (front row, center) posed for a group photo with Chinese and foreign CEOs and executives at Microsoft's campus in Washington on Wednesday during an internet industry forum, as part of his first official state visit to the US.

Xi will meet US President Barack Obama later in the week to discuss a range of thorny issues from cyber hacking to the devaluation of the yuan. 

In Chinese politics, the positioning of officials in photos is often highly symbolic.

The Chinese leader is flanked by IBM's Ginni Rometty (left) and Microsoft's Satya Nadella (right) - respresenting two of the biggest investors in China among US technology companies.

To ensure that no one, especially American social media companies, forgets the central role played by China's dissent-stifling Great Firewall, which is manned by tens if not hundreds of thousands of online censors, the only other government official in the front row is China's internet czar Lu Wei (fourth from right).

Apple has not invested anywhere near as much as Microsoft or IBM, but China now ranks as its biggest market so CEO Tim Cook also wins a place in the front row (third from right).