A new vision for China-US relationship

First of all, I would like to thank US embassy for introducing PM2.5 into China, China has been growing rapidly in the past 3 decades but at the expense of our environment, labor abuse etc. In terms of environmental protection, what kind of lesson China could learn from countries like US? What did your government do to tackle this issue?

The United States is a strong proponent of bilateral cooperation in environmental research and development of clean energy technologies. The EcoPartnership between U.S.-based Duke Energy and China-based ENN Group is an example of how we can join efforts across the Pacific to develop cleaner energy generation, smart grid technologies, energy storage, and energy efficiency solutions. We believe encouraging these kinds of collaborative relationships is important to the environmental protection of China, the Unites States, and the entire world.

As we look to the future, we see even greater opportunities for the United States and China to work together to solve global environmental challenges like climate change, protecting biodiversity, combating wildlife trafficking, improving energy efficiency, and providing clean air and clean water. The ongoing relationships between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection; between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the State Forestry Administration; and between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology are all examples of how we are working together.

In the United States, regional and local governments have often been leaders in environmental protection. For example, Southern California is well-known for its history of air pollution problems, particularly smog. By taking a leadership role in addressing its smog problem and taking proactive measures to control carbon emissions, the State of California not only demonstrates a healthy respect for the environment, but it also lays the groundwork for a whole host of new technologies designed to reduce emissions, improve energy efficiency, and create new jobs. Following California’s leadership, cities across America, as diverse as New York City; Charlotte, NC; and Portland, OR are actively greening their cities through renewable energy mandates.

Ambassador Gary Locke’s recent visit to Bo’ao forum caused quite a stir in China’s media for staying in a relatively cheaper hotel. So my question is whether it’s just a show or because you have certain rules on government expenditure?

As you can imagine, the Ambassador gets a lot of questions about his image here in China and whether it was part of some sort of strategy to be seen as a guy wearing a back-pack, taking economy flights, staying at budget hotels.

The U.S. Government has a specific set of regulations for travelling government officials, no matter what their rank or position. At the Bo’ao forum and elsewhere, the Ambassador simply follows U.S. Government regulations and stays at hotels within the regulations. In the case of the Bo’ao trip, the main hotel that was being used exceeded that U.S. Government per diem limit, so he stayed at a less expensive hotel, within per diem.

As a Chinese American, we can see the mingling of western and Chinese values in Ambassador Gary Locke. Hence the inevitable question is whether china is so different that we need to have our unique value and culture, is there any inherent incompatibility between the China and America in the cultural and value sense?

You raise an interesting question, but in our Ambassador’s experience there is no inherent incompatibility between the values and culture of the U.S. and China. Ambassador Locke is living proof of that, as are so many other successful Chinese-Americans. These are people who have reconciled the Chinese and American sides of their own identities. Likewise, the U.S. and China will reconcile their differences.

The Ambassador has said before that he took a lot of lessons from his Chinese heritage in terms of family, education, and hard work. It gives him great pride to look at China’s contributions to world civilization over the past several thousands of years. At the same time, he is very proud to be an American. America is the beacon of freedom, hope, and opportunity, as he says. America enabled his family to succeed. It was that sense of equality in America that led Ambassador Locke and his family members to believe that all people could succeed.

The relationship between Chinese and American cultures and values is still relatively young. Based on our Ambassador’s experiences and vision, we know that our two great countries have so much to learn from one another. There is not only a great compatibility in our bilateral relationship, but also a great opportunity for synergy and fusion, and the innovation that comes from that creative process. The fact is that all cultures are organic, dynamic things. Culture does not remain static; it is constantly changing and evolving. If a culture stops adapting, that it when it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant.

As the advanced economies are currently mired in financial malaise, in which area do u think China and US can cooperate to put the world economy back on track?

The U.S. and China have only just begun to benefit from expanded economic cooperation. To push onward, we’re very optimistic about the upcoming, annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue in May. We believe Vice President Xi Jin- ping’s historic visit to the U.S. reinvigorated our economic and cultural ties. It also enhanced our many state and provincial level exchanges. So we look forward to a good start.

Today, more than a million dollars of goods and services flow between our two countries every single day, and today China’s equipment and machinery products lead exports to the United States. America’s top exports to China are agricultural products, aviation, and electronics. American goods and services sold in China support more than 800,000 American jobs, and an even larger number of Chinese jobs are anchored by trade with the United States.

In 2010 U.S. exports to China exceeded $100 billion for the first time, in fact increasing by over 30 percent from 2009 continuing the past decades’ exponential growth in trade. Nearly $22 billion in U.S. agricultural exports to China in 2011 not only strengthened America’s heartland -- giving jobs for American farmers, but also eased China’s inflation and helped China achieve its food security goals.

From our standpoint, we hope to see more Chinese investment and recognize that foreign investment, including from China, is vital to economic growth, job creation and productivity. U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms employ 5.3 million U.S. workers, almost five percent of the U.S. private sector work force. These firms spend billions of dollars on research and development in the United States and give rise to more than 20 percent of our exports. Since the world economy depends on the U.S.-China economic relationship, we believe increased Chinese investment in the U.S. would make a valuable contribution to putting the world economy back on track.

In May we’re bringing a delegation of U.S. government officials to Shanghai to meet with U.S. and Chinese companies focusing on high tech items in the aviation and semiconductor industries to discuss expanding the opportunity for high tech trade in China.

These are just some of the ways the U.S. and China are cooperating to put the world economy back on track.

Interestingly, we can see leftists in China vocally supporting the Occupy Wall street movement in the states. They use it to back an argument that the Capitalism is disfunctioning and creating unfairness in society, so China should hold back its reform endeavor while returning to the good old days. What’s your view on that?

I will leave the significance of demonstrations to the historians to decide. Echoing what Ambassador Locke has said, our view on reforms is that we are simply asking China to require fairness in both policy and practice. By fairness, we mean guaranteeing a level playing field for healthy competition between U.S. and Chinese firms. Fairness also means ending discrimination against U.S. companies; ending unfair trade preferences for domestic firms; ending unfair, distortive currency practices; improving protections of intellectual property; and establishing a more open investment climate.

Former Chongqing Police chief Wang Lijun went to US consulate in Chengdu, could you offer more information about US attitude on this issue and we also know that US congress is going to hold a hearing on Wang Lijun’s case, any update on that?

Certainly we are aware of the news of the Wang Lijun case. I don’t have anything new to add though. As for how this story is being perceived in the U.S., I only know what I read in the American newspapers. There is a lot of speculation about China’s top leadership and what Bo Xilai’s dismissal means for China. I would just say that, we will leave it up to the Chinese to comment on these kinds of domestic leadership politics.