Patty's Travel Blog - China

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Day Five - Friday, January 15, 2010 -- Shanghai

Part 1

We are up for our final day and it will be a long one. This morning we have breakfast with the American Chamber of Commerce to hear their views on business here. I will then do a press conference with journalists and head to tour a local school. We will then have lunch with Municipal People's Congress (MPC) officials. Finally we will tour the World Expo site which we have been hearing about since we landed in China. We saw parts of it last night driving in and it is enormous!

Part 2

Our last day in China started with the American Chamber of Commerce breakfast. We had an excellent conversation on future opportunities and challenges for American businesses in China. We discussed the situation surrounding Google threatening to pull out of China and its potential impact on businesses. We also talked about many of the businesses' desire for the US to make progress on investments in new green energy jobs because they have seen China move ahead very rapidly in this area.

We then spoke with members of the press including the Associated Press and Fox. To my surprise they had been reading my blog!

Hands down, my favorite event was attending a school in Shanghai. The school was for 6 to 11 year olds and there were over 1,400 students. We were entertained by a class playing folk music, young girls performing a dance, and a robotics class. Senator Burris even joined a group of young boys playing basketball! We also saw young children reciting English and learning how to write cursive. Very hard to do! I was shocked to learn they don't heat the schools. They were surprised we even asked about it! I pushed them on the fact that only boys take robotics - girls "paint and dance."

Part 3

Later in the day we had lunch with the Shanghai MPC Vice Chairman Hu Wei, who we had a great conversation with about Shanghai. We talked about the infrastructure investments in Shanghai -- the city has invested nearly $4 billion just on transportation infrastructure in preparation for the expo - and their education system. It was a great chance to talk about partnerships and collaborations and I enjoyed his insights.

We then traveled to a state building on gorgeous grounds that used to be the Shanghai home of Mao. We met with the MPC Secretary Yu Zhenghsheng and were the first US delegation ever to have a meeting with him. He was very hospitable and told us a great deal about Shanghai's preparations for the Expo.

We then went to the Expo sight. What an amazing venture. The sight is enormous. They expect 70 million attendees from May through October of this year. Many of the expo buildings are already up. As a comparison, the Seattle World's Fair that I remember going to as a child hosted 10 million people! Clearly this will be an amazing experience for people from all around the world.

Part 4

As we end this trip and head back home there is much I want to share about how China is growing and changing. It's clear they have transitioned into a major player on the world stage and that presents them with difficult and important choices. It was also fascinating to hear the new....the discussions about emerging industries in clean energy, along-side the old ...their policies on indigenous innovation

For both sides this has been - most importantly - a chance to meet face-to-face. We met earlier this week as strangers but through long days of both official and personal dialogue we will be departing as friends.

Over the last four days, I have been able to meet with a range of local and national leaders. We have agreed and we have disagreed. We have made headway and we have begun discussions on new challenges in the growing relationship between our two countries. But most importantly we have made a personal connection, and the next time we meet we will have a mutual understanding and respect for one another. And that is always the best place to be.

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