On Common Ground Conference

Remarks by Ambassador Jon Huntsman at the
On Common Ground Conference
Peking University, Beijing, China
November 20, 2009  

 

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  (Speaking in Mandarin) [Hello.  I'm not sure whether I should speak in Chinese or in English, since most of you speak Chinese.  However, I don't know if the foreign students here also speak Chinese, so today I'll speak in English.  But next time I come, I'll speak in Chinese, how's that?]  [Laughter and applause].

Thank you, Ms. Pan, my friend, who greeted me so kindly.  Thank you for the invitation.  I’m delighted to be here as part of this program in part sponsored by Stanford and Beida.

I’ve always had a problem with Stanford University.  I’ve got to get this right out.  [Laughter].  My mother, large with child in 1960, was living in Palo Alto and her husband, my father, was out to sea with the United States Navy.  She went to the Stanford University Hospital, whereby she was told that they didn’t take the GI Bill and they sent her somewhere else.  They sent her down the road to Sequoya General Hospital, where I was born and where they did take the GI Bill and charged my mother $25.  She’s complained ever since, so I’ve always held that against Stanford University because of my mother.

But the good news is my grandfather was one of the great Stanford devotees ever.  He was Mayor of Palo Alto in the late 1950s and early 1960s and he lived on Webster Avenue, 2020 Webster, which was my first home for a few days before being sent off to the naval base in San Diego where my dad was housed.

So we’ve always had a wonderful relationship with Palo Alto, and by extension Stanford University.  So I thank you all from Stanford, I know there are some Stanford students here.

If there are any University of Pennsylvania students here, I don’t know that there are, I send you greetings because I’m one of you.  And I just want to use the University of Pennsylvania to highlight one aspect of U.S.-China relations before we get going.

The ninth President of the United States – anybody know who the ninth President of the United States was?

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  William Henry Harrison.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  William Henry Harrison.  Before being elected President he was a U.S. Senator from Ohio.  He cut short his tenure as a United States Senator – back then they weren’t directly elected, but rather by the state legislatures – and he accepted the position of United States Ambassador to Colombia.  So I can relate to this President.  He cut short his term, I cut short my term as Governor to accept President Obama’s invitation to serve here.

William Henry Harrison was the son of Benjamin Harrison, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He was an honor roll publisher, but he had one fatal flaw.  He liked to speak way too long, which I promise not to do today.  In fact, so long was his speech for his inauguration address in early 1845 that even Daniel Webster, one of his buddies from the United States Senate, edited down the speech to only 1,800 words.  He sat on a cold, blustery Washington, D.C. day and delivered his inauguration speech which was just under two hours long.  He got quite sick and died 32 days later.

He was the first President ever to die in office.  I don’t know if any of you knew that.  I guess in part it was due to his very long speech in adverse conditions.  The conditions are very nice in here, but I still promise not to go on too long.

That’s not exactly the point I wanted to make because what is important is that following his death there was a great discussion in the United States about political succession planning – who then becomes President after the President passes on – a great discussion, which resulted in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, and thereby allowing John Tyler, who was Vice President, to become President of the United States.

Now John Tyler was noted for two things primarily during his presidency.  One of them was he annexed the Republic of Texas, which is now kind of working in reverse from what I understand.  I know my friend here, Lisa Povolni, could help enlighten me later.  The second was an important foreign policy undertaking, because it was John Tyler who appointed Caleb Cushing to become the first United States representative to China.  So in a sense, we are bookends.  He was the first, I am the most recent.

It’s interesting to note because when you put U.S.-China relations in proper context in history, it reads like a roller coaster.  Caleb Cushing was sent over here by John Tyler because there was great concern that the British were getting way too much out of their trading relationship with China.

You’ll remember the first Opium War, right?  1837 to 1842.  1842 resulted in the Treaty of Nanjing which opened up several important ports – Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, and one old Canton port.  Trade facilitation was achieved.  They lowered tariffs and they also dealt with Hong Kong, as you will recall, which later was dealt with a little differently.  It was an open-ended agreement in 1842 and it later became quite specific, a 99 year lease in, I think, 1897 or 1898.

The U.S. was very concerned about this agreement between the UK and China, which resulted after the first Opium War.  President Tyler sent over Caleb Cushing, my colleague a long time ago, and he negotiated another treaty called the Treaty of Wangxia, which essentially gave the United States more of a level playing field with the UK.  It similarly opened up a lot of ports for commerce and for trade facilitation, but it also achieved a sense of extraterritoriality, the first ever, which meant that American citizens would be treated under U.S. law if they found themselves in trouble in China, which was quite unique and novel in those days, back when Ambassadors and Consuls General had enormous power over setting both trade policy for the United States, so on and so forth.

So the roller coaster ride continued up and down.  In fact, [as I think] of the up and down nature of the U.S.-China relationship over the years, I’m reminded of a very interesting flight story, just to put it in perspective, that took place in 1982.  For those of you who are keen on aviation history, there was a flight that left London in June of 1982, London en route to Sidney, Australia (British Airways Flight 9).  An interesting thing happened, just to put a little exclamation mark behind my comments about the roller coaster ride.

The plane left London, stopped in Singapore, refueled, was going on to Sydney, Australia, its last stop.  It started flying over the vast Archipelago called Indonesia, and something had happened the day before as in a volcanic explosion, Mount Galunggung in Java, spewing sulfuric ash into the atmosphere.  The Boeing 747 at cruising altitude hit the sulfuric ash back in 1982.  And those of you who know your aviation history remember a frightening thing happened.  It lost not one, not two, not three, but all four of its engines and it started to descend.  Can you imagine being on a 747 over Indonesia, 13,000 islands in a plane that loses all of its power?

The captain of the flight, Captain Moody, a British captain, got on the PA system and in what must have been the height of British understatement said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem.”  [Laughter].  “We have just lost power to all four of our engines.  We are doing our damndest to get them restored.  And we hope that this has not caused you any inconvenience.”  [Laughter].  “We hope this has not caused you inconvenience”!

I think about that vignette every time I think about the U.S.-China relationship, in cycles during its various periods in history.  I’m going to cite a couple of them to you, just to further put it in context before I open it up for any questions that you might have.

I fast forward in history all the way to February of 1972.  Richard Nixon stepped off this Boeing – not 747, but 707 at (speaking in Mandarin) shou du ji chang, at Capital Airport, and was greeted by Zhou Enlai, which started a series of discussions that ended in the Shanghai Communiqué.  Now I was not long ago in Hangzhou, where many of the negotiations took place, right by the famous western lake, that resulted in the Shanghai Communiqué.  My Chinese friends like to say that this communiqué is typically what my friends in China will call (speaking in Mandarin) "zhun bei jin ru shi jie shang," preparing to enter the world.  And indeed, it was a very important moment for China to prepare itself to enter the world.

Then I think back on a further move that resulted in much more, and that’s when President Jimmy Carter sent Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor, here on a secret mission in late 1978, I think it was, to work out and announce the formal diplomatic opening between the United States and China.

When you stop to think about it, it was a very different time back in 1979 when Zbigniew Brzezinski arrived, but it was only 30 years ago.  You think how much the world has changed in 30 years.

When Zbigniew Brzezinski arrived in Beijing on that secret mission, he would have found that in this city there were only 1,200 foreigners.  Today we have more than that number [affiliated with] the U.S. Embassy alone.

Today we have more Americans living and working and visiting China than you find in the entire state of Montana.  Thirty years ago there weren’t any private cars on the road.  Now there are 60 million and 10 million units manufactured each year.  China’s GDP from 1979 through today has increased 82-fold, a testament I think to the business ingenuity and the commercial dynamism of the Chinese people.

I put down a book the other night that my predecessor, President George H.W. Bush wrote when he was the envoy here in 1975.  He lamented the fact that in 1975 there was only $500 million in trade between the United States and China.  Now I can cite a whole list of U.S. companies that have more than $500 million invested in a single operation here in China.  So in 30 years we’ve gone from $500 million, $1 billion, to $400 billion, thanks in large part to China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, which takes me to point number three.

November of 2001.  I remember, because I was there helping to negotiate China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization, an event that my Chinese friends refer to as (speaking in Mandarin) "jin ru shi jie shang."  They were no longer preparing to enter the world, they had entered the world in November of 2001.

Now we sit with a large complicated relationship that is multi-faceted, that covers virtually every foreign policy issue imaginable, and one that my President, Barack Obama, has asked to be handled in a positive, collaborative and comprehensive fashion.

I didn’t know what the President thought about China.  In fact, in the last election I was the national co-chairman for his rival, who ran against him for President, John McCain.  I had not met President Obama much until he was elected.  We’d met once at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, which I and one or two other Governors attended, but I didn’t think much of the encounter at that point.  He was a Senator, newly elected; I was a Governor, newly elected.

It wasn’t until I got a call from the President to sit down and talk with him that I began to explore and think about the U.S.-China relationship, at least the updated version.  Because as Governor, which is a position I held before this job, I wasn’t thinking a whole lot about the U.S.-China relationship.  I was thinking about health care, I was thinking about education, I was thinking about transportation and a whole lot of other things.

I sat down with the President alone in the Oval Office, which impressed me to no end.  He didn’t have anybody with him.  He wanted to talk about China by himself.  He said there are some relationships that I think transcend politics.  I said I agree with that.  He said I think there are some relationships and certain foreign policy objectives that ought to be larger than personal agendas.  I said I agree with that, too.

I’m a person who believes in bipartisanship, which is a term that many in this room maybe want to become more familiar with as you understand and study the U.S. political system.

[President Obama] began to lay out his vision of the U.S.-China relationship, which he described as being something that he wanted to see as positive, collaborative and comprehensive, for reasons that we discussed thereafter.  He said I think the headline issues really need to be the global economy, climate change and clean energy, and regional security, because those are the issues that affect not just the two countries, not just the region, but also the world, and we are the only two countries today that together can solve these issues.  No one else can.  I said, Mr. President, I think we can do that.  I think we can achieve that in our relationship.  It won’t be easy.  We’ll have our ups and our downs, the roller coaster like I described earlier, but I think that’s achievable.

So when President Obama stepped off his plane in Shanghai just a few days ago in a very driving and cold rain – I was standing out on the tarmac and my shoes became waterlogged pretty quickly, and I didn’t take an extra pair of shoes, so I was quite cold that night – he arrived and found what he had hoped for, I believe: a relationship that by and large is entering a period where our focus will be more and more on global issues that the two of us increasingly can problem solve around.  He also landed to find that despite our differences, and we have our differences, we are moving in a direction that is positive, collaborative, and comprehensive.

Now while the President was here – I just want to add by giving you a sense of what was left behind – he talked more about the Pacific Ocean as something that no longer divides us, but something that we are bound by, and that the U.S.-China relationship should work in a way that meets our challenges, knowing full well that no one nation alone can meet the multiple challenges of the 21st century.

I would encourage all of you to take a look at the nine pages of detail that were part of the joint statement that was hammered out between both sides in the many days leading up to the visit.  In it you will find key areas, which are the focus of cooperation, including global economic recovery; regional crises in Iran, Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan; non-proliferation; climate change and energy – four sections.  Read through it sometime if you really want to get an update on where this relationship is going.

We’ll have an opportunity in just a few short months to convene the next round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue right here in Beijing, which will allow us again to get a check on the relationship to see how things are going, based upon having achieved a positive atmosphere that’s important to begin implementing and executing other things that together we can do.

So part of [President Obama's] visit resulted in a few important things that I’m going to point out.  First, military to military exchanges, something that we haven’t seen much of for over a year now.  The increase in officers going back and forth; the increase in search and rescue operations; the ability for junior officers to engage in important exchanges; and for us to communicate more openly about our intentions, promoting transparency, which is mighty important between our two countries today.

Second, facilitating a bilateral mechanism for people-to-people and cultural exchanges, which is what many of you are part of.  Now I can think of few things more important than this one because if we’re really going to take the U.S.-China relationship seriously, you have to ensure that the next generation coming up is given the opportunities to study and to engage in exchanges, to learn languages, and to have a better opportunity to investigate a system that is foreign to Americans and our system which is very foreign to Chinese students here.  So by getting 100,000 more U.S. students [to China] over the next four years – this won’t be easy, to be sure, but it’s doable – I think it could be one of the more important lasting legacies of this year in U.S.-China relations.

Third, on climate change, we may have some differences on how hard and how fast certain commitments play out over the short term, but both sides recognize the importance of dramatically reducing carbon emissions by mid-century and finding new energy conservation measures.  The Danish proposal was always discussed, having been put forward by Prime Minister Rasmussen, that includes a peer review feature that we feel is very important.

Fourth, clean energy.  Aside from the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Centers, which have been written about and talked about for some weeks now, there were several new initiatives in the areas of electric vehicles and clean building energy efficiency.

People just stumble over these things.  Just take that one area, for example.  Clean building energy efficiency.  When you stop to consider that China over the next ten years will be building more in the way of commercial office space than we have in our total inventory in the United States, you get some sense of how important this is and what an important contribution it could be if done right to global emissions over the next many years.  We’re also going to promote an energy partnership on shale gas resources as well as work to promote technologies and cooperation on large-scale carbon gas sequestration projects.

Fifth, on nuclear proliferation, we’re going to pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; negotiations are going to be launched on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty; and China has agreed to actively participate in preparation for the April 2010 Nuclear Safety Summit.

Sixth, on the global economic crisis, the two Presidents were quite outspoken that what has emerged from this crisis and our joint cooperation was essential in weathering the early storms.  Much of what both countries did was not public or visible in the early days of the crisis, but we did end up with good stimulus packages, reassured the markets, and stabilized bonded credit systems.

But we need to keep in mind that the new global economic order that emerges in the aftermath of the crisis that we are experiencing will look very different from the one that preceded it, which means recognizing the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive growth.

The new strategy of balanced economic growth in America means more saving and less spending; reforming our financial system; reducing our long term deficit; exporting more; and in the process, creating more and better paying jobs and committing to an open market all the while.

In China, the new strategy of economic growth means higher standards of living for workers and consumers through greater choice in the market place, improved infrastructure, a modern financial structure, better housing, quality health care, and a more fully developed social safety net that Premier Wen Jiabao mentioned just the other day as being critically important to the economic transition that is now underway.

There is every reason to think that on China will succeed, and that its extraordinary record of accomplishment over the last 30 years can be sustained.  And there is every reason to think America will once again regain its preeminent role as an American powerhouse.  You see, we are a nation that responds well to adversity.  I think we’re going to look back on the last few years as a period that allowed us to change course and to look anew at our priorities in the future.

Those are just a few of the issues that were covered by our President and I’d be happy to talk about anything else that you have related to this or any other subject, because that’s why we’re here: to engage in a little bit of give and take, and for me to learn from you.  You’re probably not going to learn much from me, but I look forward to learning from you.

So Madame Pan, if it’s okay, shall we turn it over to the students?

MODERATOR:  Thank you, Ambassador, for your enlightening speech.

QUESTION:  Hi, my name is Katherine Moreadith and I recently graduated from Vanderbilt University.  It’s a privilege to have you here today.  I really appreciate you coming, thank you.

I am particularly interested in the necessarily flexible nature of diplomacy.  As a musician, I’m coming from a somewhat different background than many other delegates here.

What I’m wondering is if now is the time to be considering a potentially drastically different approach to diplomacy. specifically the relationship between the U.S. and China, and I’m wondering if you can help give me a little bit more specifics on how you see yourself changing or shaping your role as Ambassador to strengthen and enhance not just political and economic relations between these two countries, but, as you mentioned, the collaborative and comprehensive approach, also including cultural relations bilaterally.  I’d like to hear a little bit more about that.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  What kind of musician are you?

QUESTION:  I’m a composer and pianist.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  A classical pianist?

QUESTION:  Yes.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  I’m a failed pianist.  [Laughter].  I played in a rock band.  [Laughter and applause].  The last gig I did was with a band called REO Speedwagon, which is an old American band, one of my favorites. 
It’s an excellent question and you’re asking a newly arrived diplomat, although I served before in diplomacy and I’ve lived overseas – this is my fourth stint overseas – and I’ve watched it just as you have, wondering what the right recipe is for success in terms of longer term diplomacy.

First, let me just say that as I was trying to explain to my daughter the other day – she does texting routinely, and if not texting, sits behind a computer and does the instant messaging and all that stuff – I asked her the question, does anyone who’s part of your generation ever have a conversation face-to-face with anybody anymore?  Do you ever speak heart-to-heart and head-to-head with anybody, or is it all mechanical?  Is it all driven by machines, by technology?  Which is great, that we have instantaneous communication.

People were critical about President Obama’s visit to Shanghai, for example, where there was limited exposure.  And what some aren’t stopping to consider is that this is a country with 70 million bloggers and 350 million internet users, growing exponentially by the way, and where Twitter is so fast you can’t stop them.  Go check in sometime and see how messages bounce around – web site-to-web site and blogger-to-blogger for a very long period of time – and you’ll get a sense of what the communication revolution is all about.

That’s all important and I think the technology behind it is great.  But guess what?  Diplomacy is still driven by people.  I’m reminded of this whenever I sit down with my counterparts at the Foreign Ministry or the Defense Ministry or you name the counterpart organization.  You’re still talking to another human being and you’re doing it the old fashioned way, the way diplomacy has been conducted since the beginning.  You’re still representing your interests.  You’re hearing other interests represented.  You’re engaging in compromise to some extent, to find a solution.  It’s all in human-to-human interaction.  There’s no technology driving it.  And that presupposes the people who are engaging in discussion understand one another, because if they don’t you can forget about it right off the bat.  You're just not going to have any kind of connection.

So I did a little novel thing when I was Governor of Utah, not that I would recommend that everybody do this, but I thought that the languages they were teaching in our public schools were a little dated.  They were teaching German, they were teaching French, and a couple of others.  Great languages, but I would argue they were Cold War languages.  So I asked some questions about 21st century languages.

Being a Chinese speaker, I was keenly interested in maybe introducing one 21st century language to kids at the earliest level of cognitive development.  We talked about it.  I made it a priority.  I introduced it to our state in the State of the State Address.  We budgeted for it in our state’s budget.  We started off very small, and four, five, six years later, guess what?  My state, the state I used to represent, now has more kids studying Mandarin Chinese at the public school level than any state in America.

Just a small thing, but you know what it’s doing?  It was so interesting because I would get kids from rural parts of our state, (speaking in Mandarin) hen xiang xia de di fang.  They would come into the Governor’s office and they would want to play “Stump the Governor in Chinese.”  [Laughter].

I thought this was really cool.  Not only are these kids learning a 21st century language – and I did get a few letters from German teachers and French teachers who didn’t necessarily agree with the shift [Laughter] – but they’re gaining a window into a different part of the world through which they’re going to be able to understand with greater clarity: culturally, politically, economically.  Once you begin to learn a language it does a lot for you and enhances your overall ability to crack the cultural code.

So I would argue that diplomacy is ineffective unless you are willing to invest in a generation of professionals who actually are willing to invest their careers in turn in language, culture, regional studies, and to do it professionally.  I’m not sure that we’re anywhere near the point of success in our country, in the United States, but I think longer term it’s going to be programs like the 100,000 students [to China initiative] that allow young kids access to new information, different cultures, different languages, that ultimately will stimulate a desire to want to give something back and perhaps give something back in the form of a new diplomat.

So if you go back to my original premise, which is that diplomacy is conducted the old fashioned way and so far as I can tell always will be conducted the old fashioned way, you're never going to get to a point in time where you do negotiations, trade or arms control or anything else by Twitter.  It’s just not going to happen.

You’re going to find two people or a team of people sitting at a table and doing it the old fashioned way, based on mutual respect, which means understanding each other’s political system and history, and having some respect for the traditions that they come from and enough in the way of knowledge about the political system that drives them to do what they want to do.  That’s going to take a generation of you coming up and being dedicated enough to a relationship and the well being and security of your country to go out and serve as an ambassador.

So we have some pockets of great programs, don’t get me wrong, that are doing it the right way, but do we need to (speaking in Mandarin) jia you?  Yeah, we could add a little bit of fuel.  We could add a little bit of fuel to this kind of programming in the United States, which is a very hard thing to do, particularly during a time of war.  Now you can argue the merits of war and argue the merits of being in countries X, Y and Z, but the fact of the matter is we’re deployed in areas of the world and it’s costing a lot, and that’s probably making it very difficult for other opportunities to be realized.

But let me also tell you that cultural diplomacy can be a very important part of it as well.  Music is the universal language, which you know.  And you can take people who can’t communicate verbally and you can sit down and pull two musicians out of a group, one from each side, have them perform, and you will have communicated in a beautiful way that touches the heart and soul.

My daughter’s a pianist.  She’s a very good concert pianist.  I roll her out and she performs at our residence.  I daresay that people would far prefer to communicate with her in her language of classical, Rachmaninov communication than communicate with me.  Music does that.

So I hope we get to the point where we all feel comfortable that we’ve got a sufficient enough corps of young people coming along that are dedicated to diplomacy, the cultural aspects, the political aspects, the artistic aspects, the economic/commercial aspects, they all have to be there.  And it presupposes [programs] at our universities and even down to our public schools.  And the reason I gave you the public school example is I don’t think we should start late in life.  I think a lot of this thinking begins early on in cognitive development.  I really do.

So I hope that the little program we started in Utah yields a lot of great ambassadors, diplomats, and artists someday, who then are able to venture forward and bring about a sense of goodwill, an environment that promotes goodwill.

Thank you for the question.

QUESTION:  My name is Eugene.  I’m an American delegate from Stanford University.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  No hard feelings, by the way.  [Laughter].

QUESTION:  Thank you for spending time with us here at this event.

My question is about the framework that American-Chinese relationship has been seen through so far.  A lot of people so far see the American-Chinese relationship as that of competition rather than collaboration in the sphere of economics, military and politics, or even clean energy development?  I think a few weeks ago Thomas Freedman posted an article saying that the rapid development of clean energy in China is something like Sputnik in the last century.  America is missing out on an opportunity to develop, to go ahead in the industry that matters the most.

The more we think about it, the more people really see this relationship as competition.  But as I think I hear, President Obama’s vision is moving away from the model of competition towards that of collaboration.  I’m curious how that paradigm shift might look like on the level of national diplomatic strategy, all the way down to the level of personal interaction between you and your counterpart.  And also as an Ambassador, how you go about helping that relationship in your position?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  What was that question again?  [Laughter].

That’s a mighty good question, and there are a lot of sub-questions wrapped up in that overall question.

I’ve been asked before, what’s the one word you want to apply to the U.S.-China relationship.  I don’t know what that one word is.  I’ve seen people try to do it in the past, and it lives about a year and then everybody shoots it down and they say it’s no longer valid, or the meaning is misinterpreted or whatever it might be.

Suffice it to say, we’re intertwined, inexorably so.  I like to say when I’m asked that question, I draw on an old Chinese aphorism to answer what I think ought to be the foundation of the U.S.-China relationship going forward, and that is (speaking in Mandarin), "hu xiang bang mang, hu xiang xue xi, gong tong jin bu" (help each other, learn from each other, progress together) [Laughter and applause].  That’s a simple way of answering a very complicated question.  But in the end, most of our negotiations get down to just that.  How are we going to proceed together?  How are we going to work together?  How are we going to solve problems together?

Our relationship will always have a little element of competitiveness.  It will always have an element of collaboration, and I would say that the relationship is now global.  That’s probably the most profound trend in recent years, because you’ve got two countries on the world stage.  When you're on the world stage there’s an inherent responsibility that goes with being there.  When you look at whether it’s climate change or whether it’s regional security issues, if you're on the world stage you have a responsibility to help addressing those.

That’s kind of where the United States and China find themselves, in a relationship that’s gone global, to be sure.  A relationship that is based more on collaboration around global issues, absolutely.  That’s where we find ourselves today.

I’ve also come to realize, and the President’s visit this week highlighted it once again, that the U.S.-China relationship is so large and it is so complex and it is so confusing to a lot of observers that you can make it whatever you want to make it.  You can get up and you can describe a scenario that probably is true at some point in our relationship.  So if you’ve noticed, when Congress talks about China you hear every end of the relationship debated and discussed.  Used for China, used against China.  It’s so large and complicated that you can describe it as being any number of things and you’re probably right to some extent.

So that means that we then as managers of the relationship have to take the areas of commonality, common interests, and move forward in terms of problem solving.  It doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on everything.  We’re not going to agree on everything.  But I think a sign of maturity in our relationship is the ability to speak openly about our disagreements.

I attended all the meetings that President Obama attended with Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao.  I’ve got to say some of the reporting I saw afterwards was off the mark.  I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren’t even talked about, but they were discussed in great detail in the meetings.  So our job then as managers of the relationship is to realize we’re going to disagree.  To speak openly and frankly about those disagreements in an atmosphere of respect and equality and ultimately shared interests, because it’s the shared interests where we’re going to end up working together on the issues that matter most, not only to the people of our two countries, but to the region and the world.

So you move the relationship along and you realize that as you move it forward it is moving so quickly.  The reason I gave the compare and contrasting statements about 30 years ago, it’s because it’s very instructive to see how far this relationship has come in 30 years.  Imagine the statistics that I gave you.  Practically zero trade, very few Americans roaming around here, no private enterprise or cars, and imagine where we’ve come in 30 short years.  The trajectory continues at a very rapid pace, and if you don’t stay tuned in, closely tuned in, you kind of become very quickly detached from the reality of the relationship.

So the challenge, therefore, is to make sure that key decision-makers in the United States are up to speed on where the relationship is going, where America’s interests are, and what we want to ultimately get out of the relationship.  And this means Congress, too.  Because I can tell you, having gone through a lot of meetings in the Senate before I was sent out here.  You have to be confirmed by the Senate, so you have a lot of members of the Senate who want to sit down and talk to you.  And then they vote on it to see if you meet the constitutional requirements before you’re sent out here.  I had a lot of good conversations with very smart insightful members of the Senate.  Many of them wanted to bring up issues that were of great concern to them and they wanted to ask about issues they wanted us to keep an eye on, and a good many of them would say on the way out of the meeting, I’d really like to visit China some day.  I’d really like to go.

And you say if we’re going to have people in positions of enormous responsibility who are making decisions for the United States that impinge upon the well being of the U.S.-China relationship, we’re going to have to do something about bringing those decisions-makers up to speed on the reality of the relationship as we can.  Because many people in high office have never even been here.  They imagine China to be one thing based on what they hear and what they read.  And when they visit, sometimes they see a much different reality.

We’ve had probably ten Governors through my office in the last month, maybe a month and a half.  Many of them are my friends from the Governors corps.  And without exception, they all say the same thing: I had no idea.  I had no idea there was this level of development, economic development, this number of opportunities for businesses, entrepreneurs, schools and students in my state.  So they’re going back, having seen something that is quite different.

So if you visited China ten years ago, you’re dated.  If you visited China five years ago, you're dated.  If you visited China last year, you’re dated.  That’s how fast this relationship is moving.

So it’s, therefore, quite a challenge to number one, come up with a hierarchy of headline issues that will formulate the centerpiece of our relationship.  Then you’ve got the challenge of ensuring that all key decision-makers are up to speed and knowledgeable about where the relationship is going over the longer term.

QUESTION:  Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.  I’m William Shi.  I’m a delegate from Taiwan.  I am a graduate student majoring in political science from National Taiwan University.

I have two questions.  One deals with the Taiwan, and the other with U.S.-China grand strategy.

So my first question is that in U.S.-China relations Taiwan has always been the center of the sort of controversial issues.  So the recent business, since our President Ma Ying-jeou took office last year, the relations between Taiwan and China have improved greatly.  So I was wondering, from the U.S. perspective, how do you see positive change across Taiwan Strait influencing U.S.-China relations?  And is Taiwan no longer the core of dispute between U.S. and China?

My next question, also the last question, is do you think that China has already risen to the status of a superpower?  And is the international society now already a bipolar system?  If so, is the U.S. ready to deal with a new situation of a bipolar international system?  If not, what aspects do you think that China has to improve to reach a status of a superpower?  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  Let me just start with the last one and kind of move in a little bit.  I won’t take too much time.

Rule of law will be a mighty important step for China to be looking at and considering because it’s good for economic development, it’s good for citizens, it’s good for certainty and predictability longer term.

On Taiwan, I’ve lived in Taiwan twice, so I know Taiwan.  Where are you from?

QUESTION:  Taipei.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  (Speaking in Mandarin) [Where in Taipei?]

QUESTION:  I’m from [inaudible].

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  You’re (speaking in Mandarin) [from downtown Taipei].

The relationship between Taiwan and the United States has always been premised on a one-China policy, which goes back to President Nixon’s trip here in February of 1972 and language that was hammered out very carefully that allows us to manage the issue going forward.

There are three important communiqués that also flesh out the broader aspects of U.S., China and Taiwan as part of that, including a defense angle that is part of our law and an issue that is reviewed from time to time, and where recommendations are made via Congress based on those legal obligations that go back to the Taiwan Relations Act.

So that’s the foundation that we have worked with for 30 years now.  And it really hasn’t changed at all.

What has changed is the nature of the relationship between China and the people of Taiwan under Ma Ying-jeou which is an improvement in dialogue, in communication, seemingly a desire to want to work closely, particularly on economic development issues, which I think is a good thing, and I suspect everyone in the region would applaud that.

So continuing the communication and the dialogue, which leads to greater predictability and stability in cross-Strait relations, and moving forward on the economic aspects of the relationship would seem to be a very good thing to be doing, and that’s exactly what seems to be playing out right now.  The exchanges that I have seen back and forth with fairly senior representatives have been rather encouraging for observers, and I’ve been an observer for 30 years.  So that’s a good thing.

And personally, let me just speak personally, I hope that continues.  I think that kind of dialogue, that type of interaction, that type of confidence building is good for everybody involved, and it’s good for the region.  And it means that it ceases becoming the flash point or the hot button issue that it has been in years past, where it’s consumed a lot of time and a lot of thinking and a lot of additional resources.

We’re in a much different position today and I applaud the thinking on both sides of the Taiwan Strait for engaging in this kind of instructive dialogue and moving forward in the spirit of cooperation and economic development that seems to exist today.

Thank you.

 

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(Questions from journalists following the student event): 

QUESTION:  How do you conclude Obama’s visit?  As America, how do you conclude this visit to China?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  It went a great distance in advancing the bilateral agenda.  It left a very positive impression of the United States and allows us to move forward and take the relationship to an even higher level of bilateral interaction.

QUESTION:  How do you compare this new statement with previous statements?  The new one.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  The joint statement?

QUESTION:  Yes.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  I think it’s the most substantive joint statement that at least I’ve seen, and I speak personally, in many, many years.  It is packed with our areas of mutual concern, areas of collaboration, areas where we don’t always find agreement, and it lays it out in ways that really do highlight the priorities in the relationship.  So I think it’s one of the best that I’ve seen in a very long time.

QUESTION:  For some issues like arms sales to Taiwan, there is no mention in the statement.  Why is that?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  Well, you’ll have to ask all of the drafters.  I was just one, one of many.

QUESTION:  And [Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador] Bosworth will visit the DPRK.  Any special agenda on this visit?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  No.  You’ll have to let Ambassador Bosworth speak out at the appropriate time, as I’m sure he will.

QUESTION:  Thank you, Ambassador.

QUESTION:  mentioned rule of law in your answer to that last question, did you mean that it is something China should improve on in order to achieve the status of a superpower?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  That’s one area that could be bolstered in providing greater economic and commercial certainty going forward, yes.

QUESTION:  Any details about the military-to-military exchanges?

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  No, the details will be rolled out later, but they will include higher level exchanges, maybe early next year on both sides.  Remember we just had Xu Caihou (Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China's Central Military Commission) who was in the United States.  And there will be some reciprocal visits based upon that, probably involving our Secretary of Defense at some point and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Then looking at junior officer exchanges and maybe search and rescue cooperation, starting with some early fundamentals that would be considered good confidence building blocks.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

AMBASSADOR HUNTSMAN:  Thank you.

 

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