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The 2007 George Bush China-US Relations Conference jointly sponsored by the CPAFFC, the Texas A& M University, the George Bush School of Government and Public Service and the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation was held in Washington D.C. from October 22 to 25, 2007. Former Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and former US President George Bush respectively led the Chinese and American delegations to attend the conference.

Outline of the Conference

Besides former Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin, about 130 Chinese participants were invited to the conference, including Zhou Wenzhong, Chinese ambassador to the United States; Liu Yanhua, vice minister of science and technology; Ding Jingong, assistant to the chief of the general staff and deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defence; Wang Chao, assistant minister of commerce, Ma Zhengang, director of the China Institute of International Studies, Zheng Hu, member of the Board of Directors of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC); Chen Zhaobo, independent director of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, as well as representatives from the Peoples Bank of China, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the Bank of Beijing, Chinese local governments and small and medium-sized enterprises. Leaders, teachers and students of a dozen famous Chinese universities were also present at the conference. The American side attached great importance to the conference. Among about 400 American participants there were unprecedentedly many high-ranking officials including former US President George Bush, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt, Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab,Acting Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner, Under Secretary of Education Sarah Martinez Tucker, Congressman Chet Edwards, former National Security Advisor General Brent Scowcroft, former Secretary of Defence William Cohen and former Secretary of Commerce Barbara Hackman Franklin, as well as representatives of the business and academic circles and university students.

The theme of the conference was “Development, Energy and Security”, involving such special topics as sustainable development, trade, investment, higher education, health and medical care, climate change, nongovernmental exchanges, etc. At the plenary, panel and roundtable meetings, government officials, experts, scholars, businessmen, and students of the two countries expounded their views from different angles and levels and achieved the goal of seeking common grounds while reserving differences, deepening mutual understanding and expanding consensus.

Main Views Expressed

1. China-US Relations

At the dinner party on Oct. 24 hosted by George Bush Sr., former Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing made a key-note speech. He said, in recent years China-US relations have maintained a good momentum of development and become one of the most important bilateral relations in the world. To maintain sound and steady development of China-US relations is not only in the interests of the two countries and peoples, but also conducive to peace and development of the world. To ensure the sound and steady development of bilateral relations, the two sides should make efforts to strengthen dialogue, mutual trust and cooperation, properly handle their differences, and particularly respect each others strategic concern.

At the party George Bush Sr. stressed, to the United States, US-China relations are one of the most important bilateral relations. The convening of the present high-level and all-directional conference will surely help promote a healthy development of the bilateral relations. He also clearly expressed his expectation of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and strongly criticized politicization of the Olympic Games. To show his support for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Bush Sr. once again expressed his hope to lead the American Golden Knights parachute team to China to give demonstration. He said that though at the age of 85, he wanted to be a member of the team to add fun to the 2008 Olympic Games.

In his speech, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson said, Chinas global influence is growing. The United States should give attention to increasing its capacity to strengthen constructive cooperation with China. Almost on all the issues including trade, national security, climate change as well as the DPRK, Iran, the Sudan, etc. the United States and China have overlapping interests. US-China relationship has not only become the focus of each others interests, but also the centre for maintaining the global system of stability, security and prosperity.

2. China-US Economic and Trade Relations

In his speech, Wang Chao, assistant minister of commerce, said, economic and trade relations, the most important and dynamic component part of China-US relations, are both important propellers and stabilizers of the bilateral relations. He stressed, though the current bilateral trade is unbalanced, the Chinese side has taken a series of measures to correct it. He also called on the U.S. Government to relax its restrictions on exporting high technology to China. As to the hot issues of quality and safety of Chinese products, Wang said, most of the Chinese products are up to standards. The American side should not take a part for the whole. What China pursues is 100 percent acceptance rate. China will not tolerate even one percent of its products unqualified. Meanwhile, “made in China” is only one link in the chain of world production and marketing. He hoped that other governments would work together with China to strengthen supervision and international cooperation.

Treasury Secretary Paulson said, China is now integrating with global economy and Chinas economy will affect the whole international community. In the economic field, the United States and China need each other in many aspects and broad areas. Export to China provides new markets for American products and services, beneficial to American enterprises, while import from China increases the variety of goods in the American market, reducing the prices and benefiting American consumers. Trade competition with China helps American industry keep its competitive edge, while competition also accelerates the market-oriented and more balanced development of Chinas economy. But, the rapid increase of trade and investment has also brought some problems to the bilateral relations, mainly because China has not yet acted fully in accordance with the international rules and regulations. Such problems as RMB exchange rate, safety of products, trade deficits, protection of intellectual property rights, government subsidies, trade protectionism, etc. have hindered the further development of bilateral economic and trade ties and also gave the United States an excuse for trade protectionism and isolationism.

Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez, Trade Representative Schwab and Secretary of Energy Bodman also gave speeches at the conference and stated their own views.

3. Security

In his speech, Ding Jingong, deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defence, said, China-US security relations are embarking on the track of constructive development. The Chinese side holds an optimistic attitude toward the future development of bilateral security relations. The development of the Asian Pacific region, even the whole world relies on the strengthening of cooperation in security between China and the United States. At the same time, the cooperation between the two sides in security has much space for development. Even on the Taiwan question on which the two countries have wide divergence, China and the United States still have common interests and room for cooperation. However, the two sides still lack mutual strategic trust. With Chinas sustained economic growth and continuous progress of modernization of its national defence, some Americans are becoming more suspicious and wary of China. In particular, the Military Power of the Peoples Republic of China 2007 and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report released by the US Department of Defence even say that China is the country most likely to compete with the United States militarily in the future. All this has impaired the mutual trust between the military forces of the two countries, exerting negative influence on the development of China-U.S. security relations.

David Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense, said, China hasmisunderstood the intention of US policies in the fields of security such as the issues of Taiwan, Tibet, military mutual trust, etc. So, it is imperative for the two sides to communicate and establish a dialogue mechanism to clear up misunderstanding. Scowcroft said, in addition to the Strategic Dialogue and Strategic Economic Dialogue, the two countries should establish the Strategic Defence Dialogue to handle the problems that the two countries face in security.

4. People-to-People Exchanges

Both the Chinese and American sides held that it is very important to strengthen exchanges between the two peoples. The conference specially set up the China-US People-to-People Exchange Forum. In her speech at the opening ceremony of the conference, CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin from her personal experience reviewed the tortuous development of China-US relations from not knowing each other to having some knowledge about each other, from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge and from feeling strange to familiar with each other. She said todays China-US relations are hard to come by. Though in bilateral relations problems crop up one after another and one trouble follows another, as long as both sides look at differences from the strategic perspective, give less thought to ideological differences, and tackle the problems in a realistic way, China-US relations will surely advance on a sound track.

Troy Nash, chairman of the People to People Internationals Board of Trustees, said most of the human conflicts arise from apprehension and misunderstanding. The nongovernmental friendship organizations of the two countries should continue their efforts to promote contacts and understanding and build up friendship between the two peoples. Jim Dumas, honorable deputy executive director of Sister Cities International, said, friendship city ties play a very important role in modern international relationships and through all directional basic level cooperation in the economic, cultural, educational and sports fields help shorten the distance between the people of different countries. From his own experience of doing China-US trade in the United States for over 20 years, Zhang Xueyuan, a Chinese American, told the participants the huge benefits brought by the China-US mutually beneficial trade to the people and enterprises of the two countries. He said, when there are business disputes with the Chinese side, the American side should show their good intentions and understanding instead of rashly seeking the judiciary to punish China.

Opinions about the Conference

The Chinese participants unanimously held that it was a successfulconference, at which Chinas firm stand on matters of prinicple and its positive attitudes towards developing constructive cooperation with the United States were made known. Many Chinese and American participants said, it was a high-level grand conference which so many US secretaries of the Cabinet, top American experts on China-US relations and business elites were invited to attend.

American mainstream media followed the conference with interest. Associated Press, Reuters, Voice of America, and Washington Post gave the conference objective coverage. World Journal, the largest Chinese newspaper in the U.S., carried positive reports for three days running. The Hong Kong Phoenix TV said, this high-level and new-styled conference with rich contents will bring new thinking to the China-US relations that are facing challenges.