Speech by Consul General GAO Zhansheng
At Nevada's Governor's Conference on Tourism
(November 30, Las Vegas)
The Honorable Lieutenant Governor Krolicki,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am so pleased to be part of this significant event. A great many thanks for dedicating a portion of this afternoon to China.
Today, it is truly a great pleasure and honor to offer my humble opinions before such a distinguished audience.
For those of you familiar with the history of China-US relationship, this year is unusual for both our countries; it marks the 40th anniversary of China-US Ping Pong Diplomacy, an event which changed not only the trajectory of China-US relationship in the 1970's, but also the global strategic and geopolitical landscape.
But back then, not even the most intelligent and optimistic strategists could have predicted that in just four decades, China-US relationship has developed into one of the most important, dynamic and promising bilateral relationships in the world.
--Forty years ago, isolation and estrangement kept the two nations apart and our bilateral cooperation was close to zero. Today, more than 60 cooperation and exchange mechanisms between our two governments have been put in place, covering a broad range of areas.
--Forty years ago, China-U.S. trade was negligible; in 2010, however, our bilateral trade amounted to $385 billion from less than $2.5 billion in 1979, a 150-fold increase, which means we did the job of 1979 in just 2.5 days. From January through October this year, our trade increased by 16.8% from a year ago to $363 billion. By the end of 2010, the US has made nearly 60,000 projects with total investment of nearly $65 billion in China, making it the No. 1 source country of FDI for China, and China invested about $5 billion in the U.S in the year of 2010 alone. We are now each other's 2nd largest trading partner.
--Forty years ago, there was almost no contact between our two peoples; whereas now: over 3 million mutual visitations are made between the two countries each year, which means more than 9,000 Chinese and Americans travel across the Pacific each and every single day. Nearly 158,000 Chinese students are studying in the US this academic year and over 20,000 Americans studying in China. Over 300 million Chinese, almost the total population of the US, are learning English. More than 200,000 people in the US are learning Chinese. China and the U.S. have never been so interconnected and mutually dependent as they are now.
At the same time, China-US relationship is probably one of the most complex bilateral relationships in the world. There is no ready path to follow and no historical experience or model to copy. How we finally choose to manage, shape and grow this relationship will determine its course for the next 40 years and beyond.
This January, President Hu Jintao paid a state visit to the U.S., when both our leaders declared their commitment to building a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. The visit has laid the groundwork for growing our future relationship; now it depends on us to make it happen.
I think that it is always vitally important for both sides to take a long-term and strategic perspective and work together to advance our partnership. This relationship is not one in which one side's gain means the other side's loss. Rather, it should be a relationship of mutual benefits and win-win outcome. It should be a relationship in which both sides deepen strategic mutual trust, better appreciate each other's strategic intentions and development paths, respect each other's core interests and major concerns, and deal with difference or disputes properly.
All along the line, we need to, building on what we have achieved so far, work together to explore new opportunities for cooperation and tap our huge potential to further expand and deepen the convergence of our interests. In this regard, sub-national interactions and people-to-people contacts are already two bright spots in our partnership, serving as strong catalysts for taking our bilateral relationship forward.
For the past few decades, the achievements from our sub-national exchanges and cooperation are remarkable. We have established 38 sister provinces and states and 169 pairs of sister-cities. The twinning partnerships of Qinghai- Nevada, Huludao-Las Vegas, Nanhai-Reno, Taishan-Carlson City are certainly important elements of our thriving sub-national interactions.
Perhaps the most amazing example is this: the exports to China by 47 states out of 50 in this country have witnessed three or four digit-growth during the last 10 years. The State of Nevada is one of those 47 states. China is now Nevada's third largest foreign trading partner. I was even thrilled when Lieutenant Governor Krolicki told me that from 2001 to 2010, Nevada's exports to the Chinese mainland grew by 3,200%!
We have every reason to be proud of this accomplishment. As I perceive, all this can be attributable in large part to the joint efforts of our sub-national leaders. For many years, both our sub-national leaders have been actively engaged with each other. In 2010 alone, there were at least 8 U.S. governors who led trade delegations to China and more than 100 visits by various Chinese provincial officials to the United States. We had our first Governors Forum held in Salt Lake City this July, which provided a new platform to promote our ever more thriving ties at the sub-national level.
Lt. Governor Krolicki, I know you are a frequent traveler to China. Just this August, you led a trade delegation to Jiangsu to further strength the close Nevada-China economic and trade bond, particularly investigating opportunities for more Chinese foreign direct investment into Nevada. I am delighted to see that we have already had a couple of big projects underway in Nevada. I wish to take this opportunity to solute Lt. Governor Krolicki and your colleagues for your unrelenting efforts in promoting China-Nevada ties. I believe that with our shared vision, dedication and respective competitive advantages, these projects will be able to bring more tangible benefits to our people.
Our sub-national interaction is so important not just for economic reasons, but also serves as a bridge of friendship between our people. President Eisenhower said, 'If people get together, so eventually will nations.' That is very true. That reminds me of an ancient Chinese saying: amity between people holds the key to the sound relations between states.' Investing in people-to-people interaction, humanizing and bringing down to earth the highly complicated China-US relations to our peoples will make a seemingly vast and complex relationship feel closer and more tangible. Just as one of the American Ping Pong players told reporters when he got back from his historical trip to China in early 1970's: "the Chinese people are just like us. They are real. They're genuine. They got feeling. I made friends, I made genuine friends. The country is similar to America." I want to mention that their group photo taken in the Great Wall was featured on the cover of the 26 April 1971 issue of Time Magazine, and that was probably one of the earliest tourism advertisements on the seemingly mysterious Oriental nation.
Since then, 40 years have passed. We are happy to see China-US exchanges and cooperation on tourism has become important part of our cooperative partnership.
As a matter of fact, both our top leaders keep providing political impetus to tourism between our two nations. Whether President Obama's China visit in 2009 or President Hu's state visit to the U.S. early this year, both our leaders underscored their commitment to further promoting and facilitating increased tourism. To effectively implement the consensus, our two countries have jointly launched a series of tourism initiatives and travel promotion programs. The tourism directors' dialogue mechanism initiated in 2007 is included as one of many outcomes under the annual China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT). Since then, we have convened five successful Tourism Directors Summits, involving people from our governments, travel agencies, hotels, recreations and parks, airlines and other tourism communities.
Our joint efforts have produced amazing results. In 1979, China hosted only 67,800 American visitors. Last year, the number was increased to 2 million. Since the signing of the 2007 MOU between our countries, China's huge tourism market potential has been significantly unleashed. More and more ordinary Chinese citizens have now got the opportunity to experience America's hospitality, cultural diversity and natural beauty. Last year, Chinese visitation to the US reached roughly 1.08 million, a year-on-year rise of 53%. And according to the U.S. National Retail Federation, this number will increase by 48% this year.
Nevada plays a crucial role in our increased tourism exchanges. It was the first state in this country to open a tourism office in China. Last summer, you opened a second office in Shanghai. Accompanying these strategic actions is tremendous work you have done to promote Nevada in China. We are glad to see that your efforts have paid off big.
For many Chinese visitors, Nevada is already a can't-miss stop in their travel itinerary. In recent years, several hundreds of thousands of Chinese visitors have come to Las Vegas annually, making China rank as No. 5 source of overseas travelers for Las Vegas. I do not have accurate figure, but I do hear a saying going around among many Chinese: 'if you haven't been to America, you have not really traveled abroad. If you haven't been to Las Vegas, you haven't really seen America.'
Not just Las Vegas. Many, many more Chinese visitors are beginning to include Lake Tahoe, Reno, and Elko in their roadmap of the United States. So, if this good momentum continues, we will see more and more Chinese visitors skiing in Lake Tahoe, golfing in Mesquite and trying out the cowboy life in Elko!
Ladies and gentlemen!
What we have achieved should only be seen as the first step towards creating greater success for our expanded tourism. Whether from inbound or outbound perspectives, the U.S. share in China's international tourism market is relatively small. Currently, the U.S. market share accounts only for 7.7% of China Inbound Tourism Market, and 6.5% of China Outbound Tourism Market. There is huge potential and a real opportunity to make the U.S. market share bigger and bigger.
In order to achieve that, I think we need to do the following things:
First, we should further increase mutual visitation between our people. China's State Tourism Administration anticipates that by working together, this figure is expected to reach 5 million by 2015. To hit this ambitious target, China plans to invest more in the U.S. tourism market and launch more travel promotion programs in this country; at the same time, we welcome the U.S. side to introduce more travel promotion programs in China, and we would love to see more attendance by our American friends at China's national and sub-national tourism promotion occasions.
Second, we need to continue to adopt more effective and targeted tourism facilitation measures. To better serve American tourists, China has offered various support measures, including language assistance. We hope that U.S. will be able to put in place more practical and convenient arrangements regarding simplification of visa regime, airline route opening, financial settlement, language signs and grant landing rights to more Chinese language TV channels. On the U.S. visa application, I know that the China-US Exchange Foundation has been arguing vigorously for a more convenient U.S. visa processing arrangement for Chinese tourists. I learned with pleasure that the U.S. is about to have another 50 Chinese-speaking visa officers stationed in China in the near future. I hope that can help to significantly shorten visa processing time for Chinese applicants.
Third, we should deepen our cooperation on tourism at the sub-national level. China is interested in developing travel adventures, information-based tourism, eco-tourism, sustainable tourism and standardization in the tourism sector. I believe these are some of the areas where our sub-national authorities and travel communities may cooperate. By working together, we will be better positioned to upgrade our respective travel and tourism industry.
Fourth, fostering two-way investment in tourism is beneficial to both sides. We would love to see more US tourism businesses, especially travel industries from Nevada, to establish their presence in China. Reciprocally, it is important that a more favorable policy environment be created in the US to allow more ambitious and eligible Chinese enterprises to invest here, not only to make profits, but also to help create more local jobs.
Last but not least, we may strengthen our academic and educational exchanges on tourism. Programs like tourism seminars, training sessions and youth dialogues will help us learn good experiences and best practices from each other. University of Nevada, Las Vegas offers world-renowned education on hotel management and hospitality study, which can play an important role in this regard.
Ladies and gentlemen!
Last March, President Obama signed the Travel Promotion Act into law, starting a non-profit organization - the Corporation for Travel Promotion - to promote the U.S. abroad. Similarly, China launched the 'Accelerating the Development of the Tourism Industry program' in 2009 and tourism has been promoted as a strategic pillar industry in our national economy. China is expected to become the world's second largest travel and tourism market by 2013 and the biggest in the world by 2020. With both our countries giving a top priority to tourism promotion and our economic, trade, cultural, educational engagements increasing, I have absolutely no doubt that tourism between China and the U.S. will be even more prosperous in the years to come. I believe that the State of Nevada will be able to play an even bigger role in this great endeavor.
My consulate will do everything possible to work with Nevadan friends to make it happen!
Thank you so much for having me.