JPPC Delegation Attends NCSL Annual Meeting

Invited by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) of the United States, the delegation of the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress (JPPC) with Bai Suning, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the JPPC, as the leader and Li Xiaolin, vice president of the CPAFFC, as the deputy leader, attended the NCSL annual meeting in Salt Late City, Utah from July 18 to 20 and then visited Washington D. C., Hawaii and California. The delegation was organized and sent by the CPAFFC.

The National Conference of State Legislatures, founded in 1975, is a bipartisan and the most influential state level organization in the United States. Its headquarters is located in Denver, Colorado. Legislators from 50 states of the United States and their assistants as well as legislators from other countries totaling more than 5,000 attended the annual meeting this year. At the 5-day meeting, with “The New Legislative Reality” as its main theme, they discussed homeland security, budget, economic development, education, hygiene and health, information industry and international trade, and other issues that the states were concerned about. The international session was held on the first day, and the following four days were designated for discussions on relevant issues among representatives from various US states. Present at the international session were over 100 representatives from a dozen countries and regions including China, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany and Mexico. The CPAFFC sends a delegation to the NCSL annual meeting every year since 1997.

The delegation respectively met with Calvin Say, speaker of the House of Representatives of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, governor of Hawaii, Congressman Donald Manzullo, Californian Senator Betty Karnette, and other American government officials and legislators. During these meetings, Bai Suning, head of the delegation, briefed the American side on the system of China’s local people’s congress as well as the role the people’s congresses play in legislation and supervision of the administration. CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin emphasized China’s principled stand on the Taiwan issue, talked about the present situation of China’s reform and opening up, and reiterated the importance of Sino-US relations. The legislators from Hawaii and California expressed their willingness to carry out exchanges with the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress in the future. When meeting with Congressman Manzullo, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, the delegation gave a full account of the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in Jiangsu and said that they would actively draw the attention of Jiangsu relevant provincial government departments to the issue of export to China by the small and medium-sized American enterprises. They discussed with the congressman the cooperation between the small and medium-sized businesses of Jiangsu and the U. S. in the hope that substantial results will be achieved early.

Bai Suning spoke in detail on the reform and development of China’s higher education at one of the sessions of the annual meeting and his speech drew the attention of hundreds of the participants. Many of them came up to talk with Bai Suning after the speech, saying that his speech had greatly enlightened them and helped them understand education in China and that they hoped to cooperate with Jiangsu in the area of education in the future.

Jiangsu has friendship-province/state relations with New York State, but communication between them is unsatisfactory. The delegation contacted legislators from New York State during the meeting and expressed their hope to establish links with them and work to reactivate the friendship ties between Jiangsu and New York State.