Finding common ground with China

Throughout my recent visit to China, their officials quizzed our group on how President Hu should address America when he visits next year. My answer to them was that in order for the bilateral relationship to improve, China needs to offer progress on America’s core concerns and emphasize mutual interests over differences. Some of the major sticking points between our two countries are intellectual property protection, human rights concerns, and perceptions that China’s economic growth is at the expense of America’s. President Hu needs to explain to America what China is doing to shape change in these areas, in a tone that helps us truly understand.

In America, there has been a steady monologue about China’s currency “manipulation” but much less discussion about China’s responsibility towards its own domestic economic concerns. The challenge is enormous – China has 1.3 billion people with a rapidly developing middle class population close in size to America’s entire populace; 24 million jobs to create every year; and hundreds of millions still living below the poverty line.

As the United States works to overcome the effects of economic recession, protectionism and scapegoating has been on the rise on both sides of the aisle. Enhanced trade is the fundamental to promoting American jobs and emerging from the recession with robust growth. China is already our third largest trading partner and the world’s second largest economy.  In a time of recession, it is natural for protectionism to rear its head, but as a country fundamentally dependent on trade, we must look outward and enhance opportunities to engage with China. 

In order to expand bilateral economic exchange, China needs to work on its protection of intellectual property rights and assure American investors of their security in a country notorious for the theft of other people’s ideas and inventions. Chinese leaders were anxious to give assurances that China is serious about IPR protection and asserted that they are taking necessary steps to protect both foreign and domestic companies. China’s deeds in this regard, however, will speak far louder than rhetorical assurances. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.

On the issue of human rights, China is reaching out to several Christian denominations and providing new legal frameworks for their operations among the Chinese—those denominations that come through China’s front door and without ulterior economic or political agendas. Americans know little of this, nor do they have much understanding of China’s checkered past with foreign missionaries. President Hu should share this Chinese perspective with the American people.

When President Hu comes to the U.S., he should offer progress on exchange rates, intellectual property rights protection, and human rights, and he must also tell China’s story in a way that Americans can comprehend. The Sino-American relationship is too important to both countries and to a larger world to be mired in misunderstanding.  President Hu’s message to the American public should be the triumph of mutual interests over differences. Understanding over conflict. Cooperation over condemnation. That’s the right message and tone.