Visit greases the wheels of bilateral ties

When Wang Huiyao, chief of the Center for China and Globalization, met Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, in New York early this month, they found they both had more gray hair.

In what appeared to be the first trip by a representative of a Chinese nongovernmental organization to the US since the outbreak of the pandemic almost two and half years ago, Wang found that not only had many "China hands "aged but the fabric connecting the two countries had become more frayed and calloused.

"There is huge space to be filled in terms of communications; we met large numbers of business executives and researchers," the president and founder of the Beijing think tank said in Washington before flying to Europe on Friday. "Some now have more misunderstandings about China and had grievances to air; others would stop me for an hour for questions about China."

People-to-people exchanges, once like a stream between China and the US, had begun to trickle during the administration of Donald Trump, when bilateral relations plunged to their lowest point since the two countries forged diplomatic relations in 1979.

Then they came to a virtual stop during the pandemic, save for some ripples with a few online events.

Without field trips to China and exchanges with those from China, many China hands in the US lack an authentic channel to understand the country firsthand, Wang said.

That scenario, plus the passing of some veterans like Ezra Feivel Vogel, a Harvard professor perfectly fluent in Chinese, means the ranks of those who really know about China are shrinking.

"I hope the first tour of the Chinese delegation will send a signal that people-to-people exchanges between the two countries are back in the fold, and our visit will be followed not only by more Chinese groups coming to the US but also our US counterparts going to China," he said.

In a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang last week, Wang learned that Qin had traveled to many US states for outreach efforts with local businesspeople, residents and students, and that the ambassador encouraged him to deliver the message that Beijing welcomes more interaction between businesses and institutions.

The ambassador actually shared the concerns about the caliber of China experts, and that they may become a source of misunderstanding for their lack of China knowledge.

"Some China experts cannot speak Chinese at all. They know very little about China. They only rely on secondhand information and even disinformation," Qin said on a trip to Texas on May 31. "So our relations had been deeply misled by the lack of understanding as a result of widespread disinformation, secondhand, even third-hand information."

Wang had a tight schedule for his 10-day trip to the US that started on June 29. He and his colleagues had met representatives from 30 US institutions, including Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator and now vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute; John Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Craig Allen, president of the China-US Business Council.

Anxiety over relations

One of the hot topics they discussed was the worsening of bilateral relations and when it will bottom, an indication that there is anxiety over the status quo of the relations between the world's top two economies, according to Wang.

In addition, they expressed hope that US students can make a rapid return to campuses in China and that cross-border travel will soon resume.

On July 6, Maurice Greenberg, chairman and chief executive of investment firm C.V. Starr, published an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, titled "We want to rebuild US relations with China", in which he announced he and 13 other US business leaders had formed a group aimed at resurrecting "the bilateral mechanisms of exchange that existed for decades".

The group also hopes to "reestablish a constructive bilateral dialogue based on mutual respect and understanding".

Wang said he had met five members of the new group, and during their meetings, they hoped both countries would initiate tariff relief and ramp up the mechanisms for crisis management.