Charles Foster
Attorney and chairman of Houston law firm Foster LLP
EDUCATION:

1959-61: Del Mar College

1963: BA, University of Texas

1967: University of Texas School of Law

CAREER:

1969-73: Associate attorney, Butler & Binion, Houston

1967-69: Reid & Priest, New York

1992-2015: Chairman, Asia Society Texas Center

1973-2008: President, Tindall & Foster

2009-14: Cochairman, Foster Quan LLP

2014-present: Chairman, Foster LLP

2014-present: Chairman, US-China Partnerships

Rodeos to rockets: The Texan who tightened ties with China

US lawyer Charles Foster has spent decades forging relations with national leaders and celebrities
May Zhou in Houston
Foster poses with his wife, Lily Chen Foster, and their two sons in front of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In the late '90s, Foster was involved in helping China gain permanent normal trade relations with the US. He helped the Houston Great Partnership draft a support resolution and flew to Washington with other prominent businesspeople and managed to secure a couple of key swing votes in favor of granting China the status. He considers it one of his greatest achievements in building the US-China relationship.

As chairman of the Asia Society-Texas Center for more than 20 years, Foster has presided over many China policy programs and hosted ambassadors from the US and China. He has gotten to know many statesmen and become close friends with some, including former ambassador Yang Jiechi, who is now a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Thanks to his personal ties with Yang and former president George W.H. Bush, in 2002, Foster successfully lobbied China's then-president Jiang Zemin to make a side trip to Houston on his first state visit to the US. Foster later got a note from Bush thanking him for helping improve US-China relations.

When former NBA star Yao Ming was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2002, Foster became Yao's lawyer, and he and his wife became close friends with the Yao family.

"That was almost natural given the fact Yao and his parents, like my wife Lily, were Shanghainese and shared that special bond," Foster said.

Getting to know Yao was a privilege, Foster said, as he watched him grow from being a model NBA player into a representative of an entire nation. He said he was heartened to see Yao speak out about the importance of preserving African wildlife and the harm caused by ivory imports to China, as well as against the consumption of shark fin soup.

"Many Americans learned about China through Yao's extraordinary playing skills and personality," Foster said. "No one could dislike his extraordinary combination of basketball talent and modesty, coupled with an unusual sense of humor.

"While at first he used an interpreter, it was not long before Yao showed an uncanny ability to deal with the press in English and to answer all the inevitable questions with grace and humor."

The friendship enabled Foster to get Yao to join a trade discussion about Houston led by the city's mayor, Sylvester Turner, last year in Beijing.

Foster still has a poster from Houston's Museum of Fine Arts marking what he calls the first link between Houston and China, when the museum hosted an exhibition of Chinese paintings in 1978.

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Charles Foster
Attorney and chairman of Houston law firm Foster LLP
EDUCATION:

1959-61: Del Mar College

1963: BA, University of Texas

1967: University of Texas School of Law

CAREER:

1969-73: Associate attorney, Butler & Binion, Houston

1967-69: Reid & Priest, New York

1992-2015: Chairman, Asia Society Texas Center

1973-2008: President, Tindall & Foster

2009-14: Cochairman, Foster Quan LLP

2014-present: Chairman, Foster LLP

2014-present: Chairman, US-China Partnerships

Rodeos to rockets: The Texan who tightened ties with China

US lawyer Charles Foster has spent decades forging relations with national leaders and celebrities
May Zhou in Houston
Foster poses with his wife, Lily Chen Foster, and their two sons in front of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In the late '90s, Foster was involved in helping China gain permanent normal trade relations with the US. He helped the Houston Great Partnership draft a support resolution and flew to Washington with other prominent businesspeople and managed to secure a couple of key swing votes in favor of granting China the status. He considers it one of his greatest achievements in building the US-China relationship.

As chairman of the Asia Society-Texas Center for more than 20 years, Foster has presided over many China policy programs and hosted ambassadors from the US and China. He has gotten to know many statesmen and become close friends with some, including former ambassador Yang Jiechi, who is now a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Thanks to his personal ties with Yang and former president George W.H. Bush, in 2002, Foster successfully lobbied China's then-president Jiang Zemin to make a side trip to Houston on his first state visit to the US. Foster later got a note from Bush thanking him for helping improve US-China relations.

When former NBA star Yao Ming was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2002, Foster became Yao's lawyer, and he and his wife became close friends with the Yao family.

"That was almost natural given the fact Yao and his parents, like my wife Lily, were Shanghainese and shared that special bond," Foster said.

Getting to know Yao was a privilege, Foster said, as he watched him grow from being a model NBA player into a representative of an entire nation. He said he was heartened to see Yao speak out about the importance of preserving African wildlife and the harm caused by ivory imports to China, as well as against the consumption of shark fin soup.

"Many Americans learned about China through Yao's extraordinary playing skills and personality," Foster said. "No one could dislike his extraordinary combination of basketball talent and modesty, coupled with an unusual sense of humor.

"While at first he used an interpreter, it was not long before Yao showed an uncanny ability to deal with the press in English and to answer all the inevitable questions with grace and humor."

The friendship enabled Foster to get Yao to join a trade discussion about Houston led by the city's mayor, Sylvester Turner, last year in Beijing.

Foster still has a poster from Houston's Museum of Fine Arts marking what he calls the first link between Houston and China, when the museum hosted an exhibition of Chinese paintings in 1978.