Chinese minister visits United States, speaks of opening trade and personal freedom

By Michelle Munn

Chinese Information Officer Zhao Qizheng arrived in the United States in September plying a new trade: consumerism. He fended off questions of human rights violations and cryptic trade regulations as he attempted to woo U.S. investors in China's effort to become a major player in the global economy.

The World Bank projects that China will become the world's second largest trading economy by 2020. Decades of isolation are giving way to a tide of buying, with millions of Chinese expected to increase their purchases of high technology and other imported goods once China joins the World Trade Organization.

Speaking on the theme of "Chinese Images of the United States" Sept. 13, Zhao pledged to "bring back more information" from the U.S. to his homeland and to continue opening his country to airplanes, music videos and other exports.

Zhao's visit coincided with the ten-day exhibition "2000 Experience - Chinese Culture in the United States." The event in New York included displays of Chinese art and antiquities, fashion shows highlighting China's minorities, dance troupes and a children's choir. Other prominent Chinese officials including Prime Minister Li Peng and President Jiang Zemin attended meetings at the United Nations.

As head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Communication Office, Zhao and has advocated publicity campaigns abroad to promote China's image. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation hosted Zhao's stop in San Francisco in September to address the Asia Society at the Palace Hotel - one of nine such stops in the U.S. in the run-up to the U.S. Congress vote whether to approve Normal Trade Relations (NTR) for China. Dotted with the tables of corporate sponsors like Cathay Pacific Airways, eCommUSA.com, meetChina.com, Merrill Lynch Corporation and the World Affairs Council, the luncheon provided a networking opportunity for Chinese and U.S. business interests.

"Every day, new wealth is created, new products are created here," Zhao said, gesturing to a window with a vista overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

With the number of Internet users in China expected to double this year to 20 million, and the number of websites on the Chinese mainland approaching 15,000, Chinese will reach out to neighbors as never before, Zhao predicted: "People in many sectors want to hook up to the economic boom."

The development of the Internet has allowed us to know the world by a mouse," he continued. Those living near the Golden Gate Bridge can glimpse online Shanghai's Nan Po Bridge. Chinese television reporters use the New York Times to supplement their research. And families divided by the Pacific Ocean can communicate cheaply online.

More than 50 Special Economic Zones have been set up in China to funnel in foreign investment. Motorola has a semiconductor plant in Tianjin. Seagate manufactures disc drives in Shenzhen. General Electric has a freezer factory in Qingdao.

But some U.S. businessmen at the lunch complained to Zhao that they were shut out from supplying some of the $165 billion of goods that China imported in 1999. While the U.S. imported almost $82 million from China that year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, China imported just $13 million in goods from the U.S. China has high tariffs, cryptic trade rules and regulations, and investment restrictions, all of which hamper trade.

"We admit there's a trade difference," said Zhao, who as former vice mayor of Shanghai has made repeated trips to the U.S. to speak with companies and attract investment in the Pudong development area. "China wants to buy U.S. goods, partly high-tech, but the U.S. has restrictions on exporting high-tech to China."

Zhao did not mention piracy, trademark or contract problems. But then a Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect from the audience informed Zhao that her company, which bid on the Shanghai Jin Mao Tower - once the tallest skyscraper in the world - had entered an international competition a decade ago, won the contract, but never got paid.

Zhao called the U.S. and China "unfamiliar friends." For many Americans, China remains a mysterious, distant land, he said. In the 1950's Chinese and American forces fought for domination of the Korean peninsula. Because of what Zhao called the "U.S. bias" in that war, China and America became "amicable enemies" for much of the second half of the century, despite Pres. Nixon's 1972 visit to reopen relations with China and create the "One China" policy, and despite Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's 1974 visit to the U.S.

The triangular U.S.-China-Korea relationship has shifted to that of U.S.-China-Japan, Zhao stated, and the Cold War has given way to the Trade War. The question is now not who will have the most political influence over Korea, but who will have the most trade opportunity in China.

The U.S. is the third largest investor in China, with major corporate investors in the country including Atlantic Richfield, Coca Cola, Amoco, Ford Motor, united Technologies, Pepsi Cola, Lucent Technologies and General Motors.

As part of what critics called a PR campaign, Zhao said China hoped to minimize friction in its relations with other countries: "The triangular relationship is that the smaller the triangle, the better. The bigger the triangle, the worse." He added that a potential Japan-U.S. strengthening of relations would not necessarily provoke Chinese ire, unless China is rejected in its bid to join the WTO.

Zhao's visit also provided a forum for Western media to warm up to China. In other stops on his tour, Zhao complained he could not understand why the U.S. media holds negative views about China.

"American's don't 'get' Chinese culture," he said through a translator. "A lot of the content has to do with how people interact. How should you treat your friends, your parents, other people? How do you think? (China's) not a culture that believes in aggressiveness."

The media has a significant role to play in the nations' thawing of relations. When asked if the government would allow more free expression from its citizens over a decade after the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Zhao said that the shaping of public opinion was a "prominent function" for the Chinese state.

"If you are talking about sovereignty, all governments are interested in that. There is press freedom in China," Zhao said, "But we do regulate the press." The audience laughed. Zhao said that supporting 2,200 newspapers, 8,000 magazines, 2,000 television stations and 1,000 radio stations testified to China's freedom of speech. "In practice, there's no way to censor all of them. We rely on editors of these organizations so we can regulate."

Other audience members, like Falun Gong practitioner Adam Leining, questioned Zhao about China's quelling of alternative expression. Zhao's response: the individual is all right, but the problem is "the organizers."

Still, Zhao ended the speech to the largely receptive audience on an upbeat note.

"I'm an optimist," said Zhao. "I feel the two peoples want their relationship to improve, and so it will."