I'm in Washington D.C. this week to attend a conference. My hosts invited me to attend a dinner with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan's delegation. For some reason, I was expecting an intimate gathering, but I realized quickly that it was one of those rubber-chicken dinners with hundreds of guests—none of whom I knew. But once the doors to the main dining room opened, I realized that this wasn't going to be a typical event. Each table bore the name of a large U.S. corporation, such as AIG, Chevron, Citi and Dell. Even Amway was a “Gold Sponsor." At the front of the room, there was a large rectangular dining table that spanned the entire width of the room. It had seats all around it, meaning that half of the table would have its back to the rest of room. For those of us in the audience, it gave the sense that we were going to be watching a state dinner. Which in a way, we were.

In walked the people seated at the head table with the Vice Premier's delegation. It was a who's who of current and previous administration cabinet officials. Dignitaries from the current Bush administration included Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, Jr., Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer, and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. Former administrations were represented as well, such
as Clinton's former Defense Secretary, William Cohen (who has also served as a U.S. senator and congressman), and Carla Hills, who was the first woman to serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (under President Gerald Ford) and the former U.S. Trade Representative under the first Bush administration.

The evening's main speaker, of course, was Vice Premier Wang Qishan. He has been vice premier since March; formerly, he was the mayor of Beijing and executive president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games. He spoke for at least 30 minutes, and as difficult as it is to communicate through simultaneous translation, Mr. Qishan came across as a very charismatic leader. At one point, he even apologized for not speaking from his script and showed us his index cards. Instead, he spoke from his heart and gave us greater insight into himself and his country.

He began his remarks by talking about the recent earthquake—partly because it's such an enormous disaster, but also because the people who spoke before him talked about providing moral and financial support for the Chinese as they recover. He noted that the same area was hit by a large earthquake 30 years ago, but that the response this time, both from the Chinese government and from the international community, is dramatically better.

Then he invited us all to attend the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, whose theme “One World, One Dream” seemed to resonate with him. He gave us permission to call him if we could find hotels or tickets. Humor is hard cross-culturally and through interpreters, but in this case, it worked.

Mr. Qishan spent a great deal of time discussing the perils of protectionism, no matter its origin. He remarked that back home in China, people have told him that the United States is becoming protectionist. His response was, "How could this be when the U.S. is a country of immigrants? How could this be when the U.S. was once so strongly in favor of free trade?"

He told us that before coming to D.C., he visited St. Louis, Missouri. He spoke eloquently about the Gateway Arch and how it's a symbol not only for the city, but for the country and for the policy of free trade.

(Photograph by Daniel Schwen.)
The Arch, Mr. Qishan he observed, represents a doorway—not a door. It reflects St. Louis’ role in the Westward Expansion of the United States during the nineteenth century, and was a fitting metaphor for his main message of open trade. He said the people with whom he met in Missouri were not protectionist and wanted more involvement with China, which encouraged him to look at our heartland and not just the coasts.

Trade protectionism, he said, is everywhere. It's normal, especially when there are so many economic problems caused by both domestic and external factors. Protectionists hope to reap economic benefits from the outside without risking internal dislocation. This is not a U.S. phenomenon, he assured us, speaking at length about the protectionism inside China. Protectionists there say that the country is opening up too fast. You can't trust Wall Street because they are experts at making money, and China may give away too much as a result.

In contrast to Chinese isolationism, Mr. Qishan noted that whenever China has been open, it has prospered. More than 1,000 years ago, China was an open and active trader. Then the country closed up and became internally focused. At the end of that period, they discovered that the world had passed them by. By opening up, the country's leaders realized that they could benefit from the advances the world had made.

The bottom line is that both China and the United States face challenges from those at home who want to fight free trade.

He went on to make some interesting comparisons. He noted that China's GDP is fourth in the world. But in GDP per capita, it moves it to #100. China needs to be cognizant of the fact that aggregate GDP doesn't matter: GDP per capita does. The United States is still the world's only superpower. The U.S. defense budget alone, he noted, is equal to the entire budget of the Chinese government.

Vice Premier Qishan said he believes that together, the U.S. and China can address regional issues; issues of urban development versus rural development; and issues related to the environment. As China's 1.3 billion citizens embark on modernizing the country's economy, the country realizes that it needs to advance without making the same environmental mistakes that the rest of the industrialized world has. It's easy to have either fast development or sound development. The hard part, he noted, was to do both—to grow quickly and in a way that's environmentally sound.

Earlier in the day, he and Secretary Paulson signed several bilateral agreements. (I'm sure that the provisions in these agreements didn't go far enough for some, but went too far for others.) He said that signing the agreements was the easy part, and that it was now up to both countries to work out  he hard details to make these agreements successful. The largest developed economy and the largest developing economy have much to offer each other. Hurling accusations won't work; we need to put ourselves in each other's shoes. Both the U.S. and China have recently experienced an unprecedented period of growth and low inflation, he observed, a situation that the U.S. press is doing a better job of covering than the Chinese media.

As I said, it's hard for charisma to come across through translators. But it was clear that Mr. Qishan is a charismatic leader who was speaking from his heart. Perhaps he realized this too late in his remarks, because he noted that the Chinese have a saying that basically goes like this: “The mouth causes many problems for people. It is through the mouth that germs and disease enter the body. It is out of the mouth that things are said that perhaps shouldn't be.”

I, for one, found his remarks to be encouraging and enlightening. I only wish more Americans could have attended this particular rubber chicken dinner. The sooner we break down the walls of misunderstanding, the better we'll all be.