Here’s the piece…
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2014-03/14/content_17347423.htm
US Congressman Rick Larsen is leaving for his ninth trip to China on
Saturday, but this time on crutches.
The Democrat House member from Washington State is still healing from
a broken ankle.
Larsen, co-chair of the House US-China Working Group, will be joined
on the week-long trip by three other House members: Charles Boustany,
a Louisiana Republican who co-chairs the working group; Kenny
Marchant, a Republican from Texas; and Mike Quigley, a Democrat from
Illinois.
The group will also include two Congressional staff members from
Larsen’s and Boustany’s offices as well as Fordham Law School
professor Carl Minzner, a specialist on China’s legal system.
The National Committee on US-China Relations is hosting the March
16-23 trip, taking the group to Beijing, Xi’an and Guangzhou.
Committee President Steve Orlins is already in China.
Larsen said the trip’s goal is to understand the role of the economic
reforms that have been announced since the Third Plenum.
“From the United States’ perspective, understanding the economic
reform proposed and how it relates to the US-China economic
relationship is very important and will have an impact on US policy
and US economic policy toward China,” Larsen told China Daily on
Thursday.
In Beijing, the group will meet top Chinese officials to discuss and
learn about China’s economic reforms. In Xi’an they will visit the
aerospace manufacturing industry.
“I am mainly driving that part of the agenda because I want to
understand better the role and future of Chinese aviation industry,”
said Larsen, smiling and looking back at a Boeing plane model in one
corner of his office in the House Rayburn Building. “I think the
Chinese government expects aviation industry to be a major part of its
growing economy in the future.”
China is one of the largest customers for Boeing, which has nearly
half of its 170,000 employees based in the Washington state.
To Larsen, the trip to Guangzhou in South China, a trailblazer of
China’s economic reform in the past decades, will help the group
understand how economic reform will work in a place that is far from
Beijing.
Larsen said he already has received positive messages about China’s
economic reforms since the Third Plenum, citing Chinese President Xi
Jinping, who is personally heading the comprehensive economic reform
leadership office.
“I think he is trying to be in control of promoting and pressing for
economic reform, which the new Chinese leadership sees as important
for China’s future economic growth,” said the 48-year-old.
But Larsen pointed out that the challenge for China has been implementation.
“It’s one thing to read about it. It’s another thing to see it,” said
Larsen, who is in his seventh term in Congress since 2000.
Besides meeting Chinese officials and lawmakers, the US Congressional
delegation will also meet Chinese business leaders to learn how the
economic reforms will affect them and how they are going to use the
reforms to help job creation in China.
The group will also meet with US companies doing businesses in China
and also meet people in the financial industry. Financial reform has
been a priority in China’s next economic reform program.
Larsen said he and Boustany will brief Senators Mark Kirk, a
Republican from Illinois, and Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii,
after returning from China. The two Senators have been planning to
form a Senate China working group this fall.
Larsen and Kirk, a House member who became a Senator in 2010, set up
the House US-China Working Group in 2005 in wake of the failed
acquisition of California-based Unocal by China National Offshore Oil
Company (CNOOC) in a bid to educate members of Congress about
China-related issues.
The trip by the group in the coming week was originally scheduled for
last September but was canceled due to the federal government’s
partial shutdown.
Larsen believes that with the Third Plenum concluded and now the
National People’s Congress sessions ended, the timing is probably
better. “All the steps that have been taking place now are for Chinese
leadership to start reform,” said Larsen.
All of Larsen’s trips of China have all been about business. He has
not yet taken a leisure trip there with his wife, but he said he is
looking forward to such an opportunity.
“That shows how dedicated I’m on this (US-China) relationship. I’m
going to China on crutches,” said Larsen, laughing.
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(China Daily USA 03/14/2014 page1)
