Home > Pictures in the News
Keynote Speech by Consul General Zhang Jianmin at the 7th Berkeley China Summit
2022-10-08 06:52

On October 1st , Zhang Jianmin, Consul General of the People's Republic of China in San Francisco, attended the 7th Berkeley China Summit and delivered a keynote speech. The full text is as follows:

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Dear Students,

It is a great honor to speak at the Berkeley China Summit. UC Berkeley is one of the best universities with immense intellectual vitality. Students from across the world, all brightest minds, come together here to explore, ask questions and deepen understanding of the world. As a diplomat, I am a strong believer in the importance of dialogue and communication. So I am very delighted to have the opportunity to talk about China-US relations and work together with you to help improve the world. 

Today is a very special day for China. It is the 73rd birthday of the People’s Republic of China. China has made an extraordinary journey. The Chinese people are proud of what China has accomplished. In fact, each and every one of us have very personal stories to tell from our own experience about how the country has evolved and how our lives have improved. When I was an elementary school student in the 1970s, I could never have imagined that one day, science class could be taught live from outer space by Chinese astronauts in China’s own space station. When I joined the diplomatic service in 1990, I had to travel by train from my hometown Hangzhou to Beijing. The distance is 1500 kilometers or 930 miles. It took me more than 25 hours then, but the same trip today takes only less than five hours.

Among the audience I see many Chinese students. I would like to congratulate you on having the opportunity to study in this esteemed university. You must be the pride of your families. Such opportunity was very rare for your parents and grandparents, because when they were at your age, China was yet to achieve moderate prosperity, yet to eradicate abject poverty, yet to open as widely to the outside world and yet to become the world’s second largest economy.

China has, indeed, come a long way. The progress is the result of many factors, including the able leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and government, the hard work of the entire Chinese population, and the support and cooperation of the international community. China’s journey continues and the better is still to come. In two weeks, the much-anticipated twentieth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will take place. It will formulate major development goals and plans for the next five years and beyond. What I can assure you is that China will keep up with its efforts to achieve national rejuvenation. At the same time, China will remain committed to working closely with the rest of the world in building the global community with a shared future.

This year is also a very special year for China-US relations. It marks the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s historic ice-breaking visit to China in 1972. According to President Xi Jinping, the reopening and growth of China-US relations was the most important event in international relations over the past 50 years, which has benefited the two countries and the whole world.

Of course, at the time when President Nixon visited China, I was too little to know anything about it. But Nixon did come to my hometown. He brought five Californian tree seedlings to the city as a gift. One of them was a sequoia tree and it was planted in Hangzhou Botanic Garden. It was 2.4 meters tall, but now it has grown to almost 20 meters tall. Maybe you will find it interesting to take a look at the tree if you ever visit Hangzhou in the future. Like the tree, the China-US relations have also grown significantly over the past 50 years. The relationship has had its ups and downs, but on the whole, we have managed to identify common interests and engaged each other in mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields. 

One example of such cooperation is in the field of education. As a result of the normalization of our relations and the beginning of China’s reform and opening up program, the Chinese and US governments agreed in 1978 that China would start sending students to study in American universities. Many people applied, but for the very first batch, only 52 students were sent over here. 14 of them came to study at UC Berkeley, more than any other American university. In this sense, UC Berkeley has been one of the pioneers in educational exchanges between our two countries. So thank you, UC Berkeley. The number of Chinese students in American universities has since kept rising, exceeding 400,000 before the pandemic. The momentum of growth is strong, and it is also true of exchanges and cooperation in many other areas. Both countries and the world have benefited from such positive developments.

As President Nixon said in his toast at the welcoming dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing fifty years ago, “the Chinese people are a great people. The American people are a great people. If our two peoples are enemies, the future of this world we share together is dark, indeed. But if we can find common ground to work together, the chance for world peace is immeasurably increased.” We enjoyed a productive relationship for decades. Nevertheless, to the disappointment of many, severe challenges have cropped up in the relationship in recent couple of years. The bilateral relationship is now at a low ebb since the establishment of diplomatic ties. China is viewed by the United States as its primary rival and most serious long-term challenge. China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is violated. Unfounded accusations are made against China to mislead the public opinion. Common interests are ignored. Seeing such developments, I and many others I have spoken with are increasingly concerned that unless serious efforts are made to improve the situation, the relationship might further deviate from the right track and eventually find our two countries sliding toward the dark future that President Nixon warned against fifty years ago. 

The China-US relationship is one of the most consequential in the world. How this relationship evolves will shape the world in the 21st century. Given such importance, everyone is a stakeholder. No one should be a mere spectator. It would be necessary for all of us to work together to improve and grow this relationship. In this regard, I wish to share with you the three Rs which I have been thinking about a lot recently. For our relationship to get better, I think it is important to be respectful, reasonable and responsible.   

Let me start with being respectful. When our two presidents communicated with each other, President Xi Jinping pointed out that in order for our two countries to get along, it is necessary for there to be mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.  

For any relationship to succeed, there has to be mutual respect in the first place. This is not just true in the case of people-to-people relations, it also applies to relations between nations. If we are respectful to each other, it will enable us to better accommodate differences and find more common ground. That’s exactly how our relationship began. From the very beginning, China and the United States have been aware that each is dealing with a country very different from itself. Yet, because there was such mutual respect, these differences were no obstacles to us breaking the ice and establishing diplomatic ties, no obstacles to us deepening cooperation based on common interests, still less to us making joint contribution to world peace and prosperity. 

President Nixon said before his departure for China in 1972 that “The government of the People’s Republic of China and the government of the United States have had great differences. We will have differences in the future. But what we must do is to find a way to see that we can have differences without being enemies in war. ”

You can never tell what mutual respect will bring about? Ping-pong diplomacy started even earlier than the Nixon visit. During the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Glen Cowan, a young American ping-pong player, happened to get on a shuttle bus aboard which there was already the Chinese team. It was a totally new experience for all of the players. They didn’t know what to do, until Chinese champion Zhuang Zedong went up to the front of the bus and said hello. He even prepared a silk embroidery as a souvenir for the American player. Cowan was very happy. They shook hands. He later gave Zhuang a shirt with team logo in return. What followed had a great impact in both countries and the world. Team USA visited China after the game was over in Japan. They were received by Premier Zhou Enlai. One year later, Team China became the first Chinese delegation to visit the United States. They were received by President Nixon at the White House. 

Yes, strategic vision from great statesmen is important for bilateral relations to grow, but like a big mansion, a successful relationship needs a solid foundation, and that foundation can be built with mutual respect from people just like you and me or anyone sitting next to us. 

Although China and the United States were different, are different and will be different, our two peoples have much in common. To help people realize their dreams for a better life is the task for every government. There are no shortage of things our two countries need to and can work together on.  

And this leads me to talk about the second R: to be reasonable. I often hear people say that the United States today is very polarized. Remarks are made and actions taken just for the sake of so-called political correctness. But unfortunately, what seems to be politically correct quite often turns out to be practically incorrect. 

In the case of Section 301 tariff dispute, some in the US would probably argue that it is politically correct to impose higher tariffs on imports from China. But the practical result is that the American consumers have been bearing most of the burden. Each household has to spend 1,300 dollars more each year. 250,000 US jobs have been lost. The market value of US companies has shrunk by 1.7 trillion dollars. And inflation situation does not get any better. We believe the trade dispute hurts our common interests and disrupts the global economy. That’s the reason why we have been calling for their removal. Making life difficult for China does not make life any easier for the United States. Scapegoating and punishing China does not help solve the US’ own problems at home. So I would like to ask: Would it not be better to take a more reasonable approach and remove the tariffs as soon as possible?

In my view, the biggest political correctness is to serve the interests of the people. When I see certain people trying to outperform each other in playing tough against China with little regard to practical results, I want to say to them: Come on, times have changed. In this globalized world with interdependence between countries, especially between us as the two leading economies, zero-sum game has no place and is unsustainable. On the contrary, we each have a lot to offer to the other side to make life better for both. Through win-win cooperation, both countries will be able to enjoy faster and greater progress, and make more joint contribution to solving the world’s problems. Engagement with China makes more sense than decoupling from China. China-US relationship is too important to become the victim of short-term calculation driven by political correctness.

Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last June, “a full-scale decoupling is an economic impossibility” that would undermine US global competitiveness. President Craig Allen of US-China Business Council told me not long ago that China is the top export market for 5 US states, the top 3 for 38 US states, and the top 5 for 47 US states. Despite the political tension and the impacts of the pandemic, our bilateral trade reached 750 billion dollars in 2021, up by 28.7%. It supports 2.6 million US jobs. Of course, it also supports many jobs in China as well. US businesses in China overwhelmingly remain profitable and continue to recognize China’s importance to their global competitiveness. Tesla has expanded its capacity and now produces 3000 cars a day in its gigafactory in Shanghai. 

Again, why can’t those people just try to be more reasonable? China has a middle-income group that exceeds 400 million. The 1.4 billion people are on their way toward modernization and common prosperity. A stable and more prosperous China will provide broad opportunities for the United States and other countries. Peaceful coexistance and win-win cooperation with China is a more reasonable choice. Perceiving China as a serious challenge might seem politically correct for some, but practically it will only lead to the self denial of opportunities stemming from China’s sustained development.  

The last point I want to make is to be responsible. China is the biggest developing country. The United States is the biggest developed country. Both are security council members. We are the two leading economies. As President Xi said to President Biden in their last phone conversation, the people of our two countries and the world expect China and the United States to take the lead in upholding world peace and security and promoting global development and prosperity. This, said President Xi, is the responsibility of China and the United States as two major countries. 

The world is confronted with so many difficult problems that UN Secretary General has publicly said that “the world is in deep trouble”. Under such circumstances, a stable and healthy relationship between China and the United States will be all the more important. Our bilateral relationship has global significance and bears on the well-being of people across the world. Working with each other, China and the United States can deliver many good things for both countries and the world. In the past, China and the United States have made concerted efforts in fighting terrorism, tackling the financial crisis, combating the Ebola pandemic and bringing about the Paris Accord on Climate Change. Now in the face of such pressing global challenges as the Covid-19 pandemic, global economic recovery, climate change, non-proliferation and settlement of regional hotspot issues, the world also very much hopes to see a more stable and cooperative China-US relationship. To make that happen, it will help if the United States acts responsibly to adhere to the one China commitment and the provisions enshrined in the three Sino-US joint communiques.

US Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has been described by Thomas Friedman, the renowned New York Times columnist, as “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible”. It was a provocation against China’s core national interest and dealt a heavy blow to the bilateral relationship. The three joint communiques provide the political foundation of our relationship. Although both sides have made commitments to abide by the communiques, the United States does not have a good record of keeping its promise. Repeated failure to observe serious international agreements will ultimately compromise its international standing and credibility. It will be a plus for its own image if the United States could refrain from applying double standards and stop being so self-righteous. That will bring it one step closer to being a more responsible country that leads by the power of example, not by the example of power.   

To conclude, I want to say that despite all the difficulties in our relationship, I am still hopeful, because in my meetings with people from all walks of life, an overwhelming majority strongly wish for a normal, healthy and productive China-US relationship. Cooperation benefits all while confrontation benefits none. At the end of his toast in Beijing, President Nixon quoted Chairman Mao. Nixon said: Chairman Mao has written: “So many deeds cry out to be done, and always urgently. The world rolls on. Time passes. Ten thousand years are too long. Seize the day, seize the hour.” President Nixon went on to say: “This is the hour. This is the day for our two peoples to rise to the heights of greatness which can build a new and better world.” 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The improvement of China-US relationship today requires the same spirit of urgency. People of our two countries and the world deserve a better China-US relationship. Let us seize the day, seize the hour, to bring that about. 

Go Bears. Thank you. 

Suggest to a Friend:   
Print