Hu Says Strong China-U.S. Ties Are Needed as World has `Tortuous' Recovery
Hu Jintao, China's president, speaks during an event hosted by the U.S.-China Business Council in Washington. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Muhtar Kent, chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Co., Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive officer of Aloca Inc., and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire offer their views on Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. This report also contains comments from Nicholas "Nick" Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Jamie Metzl, executive vice president of the Asia Society, and Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at Cornell University. (Source: Bloomberg)
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- David Cote, chief executive officer of Honeywell International Inc., talks about the impact of Chinese President Hu Jintao's U.S. visit on business relations between the countries. He speaks with Peter Cook in Washington on Bloomberg Television's "Bottom Line." (Source: Bloomberg)
Chinese President Hu Jintao told business executives in Washington that closer ties between his country and the U.S. were critical amid a “tortuous” global economic recovery.
“In the face of the complex and fluid international situation and various risks and challenges, the people of our two countries should step up cooperation,” Hu said in a speech yesterday following a White House summit on Jan. 19 with President Barack Obama.
U.S. companies doing business in China are concerned that their growth in what may now be the world’s second-biggest economy will be curbed by government policies to help home-grown firms compete globally in sectors such as aviation, banking and telecommunications. Business leaders including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein were in the audience.
At a White House meeting Jan. 19 with Blankfein and other executives including Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney and General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Hu addressed that issue, telling them that China “will, as always, try to provide a transparent, just, fair, highly efficient investment climate to U.S. companies and other foreign companies.”
Hu’s address yesterday, his only policy speech in a four- day U.S. visit that concludes today in Chicago, also discussed broader bilateral issues. Hu said China would never pursue an “expansionist policy” and that its military was only for self- defense. He stressed that Tibet and Taiwan were China’s “core interests.”
Partner and Competitor
Many U.S. companies have begun questioning their “long- term viability in China” amid regulations designed to promote Chinese companies, according to a report last year by the Beijing-based American Chamber of Commerce in China, which counts Intel Corp. and GE as members.
“You always get this question: are they a partner, are they a competitor, are they a customer, are they a supplier, and of course the answer is ‘yes,’” Honeywell International Inc. CEO David Cote, who attended the speech, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “You need kind of a nuanced, broad based, thoughtful approach to our relationship with them, and I’m very hopeful that this visit took one more step to having that broader, more nuanced relationship.”
Even as U.S. business groups voice concerns over the China market, many are seeing rapid sales growth there. Two of the top 10 best-selling cars in China last year were made by a General Motors Co. venture. GE’s China sales should grow in the “high double digits” this year, Immelt said last month.
Biggest Profits
“For many American companies, their businesses in China have become the biggest source of profits in their global operations,” Hu said in his speech yesterday. “Even in 2008 and 2009 when the international financial crisis was most severe, over 70 percent of American companies in China remained profitable.”
Hu said that inexpensive but “quality” Chinese goods saved U.S. consumers more than $600 billion over the past decade. He also called for more cooperation on aviation, infrastructure, power grids, health and the environment.
“There still exist many uncertainties and destabilizing factors, making the world economic recovery a tortuous process,” Hu said. “All countries in the world, including China and the United States, want to fully emerge from the crisis as soon as possible.
Rubin, Greenberg
Other invited guests included former Goldman Co-Chairman Robert Rubin, former American International Group CEO Maurice “Hank” Greenberg and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who introduced Hu.
Outside the hotel in Northwest Washington where Hu gave his speech, protesters lined the streets, waving Tibetan and U.S. flags and calling for Tibetan independence. Other demonstrators supported Hu, waving the red-and-gold Chinese flag and chanting, in Chinese, “welcome, welcome.”
Demonstrators both supporting and opposing Hu greeted him again at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago, where he arrived yesterday evening to have dinner with Mayor Richard M. Daley and meet with CEOs, including Boeing’s McNerney.
“American politics is too polarized,” said Jin Zhongmin, a research scientist at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago who was born in China’s Hubei province and came to support Hu. “I don’t want the international relationship to be like that. China and America have a lot of differences but more common ground.”
Human Rights
Earlier yesterday, Hu met with bipartisan groups of U.S. House and Senate leaders at the Capitol. Lawmakers said afterward that they pressed the Chinese president on human rights, trade, currency, intellectual property and other issues.
China has a “responsibility to do better” at guaranteeing freedom and dignity for its citizens and the U.S. has a “responsibility to hold them to account,” House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement after Hu met with leaders of his chamber.
At his dinner with Hu, Daley called the Chinese leader a “man of vision” and said he would make Chicago “the most China-friendly city in the United States.”
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