Chinese foreign friendship chief seeks to boost relations with tour of US
- Yang Wanming, head of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, began his 12-day tour in the American capital on Saturday
- The visit is designed to ‘deepen the friendship between the two peoples and advance cooperation between sister cities’ through non-official channels
A delegation led by Yang Wanming, president of the semi-official Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, arrived in Washington on Saturday to begin a 12-day tour of the country. During the visit he is also visiting Texas, Nevada, California and Washington state.
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“The visit aims to … deepen the friendship between the two peoples and advance cooperation between sister cities,” the agency said, adding that meetings would be held at the “civil and subnational” level.
Government officials, law enforcement agencies and the two countries’ militaries have also stepped up exchanges following their meeting, while Beijing has also been placing a greater focus on cultivating relations at a non-governmental and local level.
The friendship association said Yan had attended a welcome dinner in Washington DC hosted by the Albright Stonebridge Group, where he exchanged views with executives from 22 multinationals including former United States trade representative Carla Anderson Hills and Robert Goldstein, chief executive of Las Vegas Sands.
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He told attendees that he hoped US companies would “play a greater role” in stabilising and developing the relationship between the two countries.
On Monday Yang attended a symposium in the US capital to commemorate the 45th anniversary of formal China-US relations, where the guests included Rick Waters, managing director of Eurasia Group’s China practice, and Xu Xueyuan, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy.
Yang told the event, attended by academics from think tanks and universities, that the Chinese and American people had forged “a profound friendship” with their lives and blood during the second world war and that today’s global peace and stability could not be maintained without the joint efforts of the two nations.
“China-US relations have never been a one-way street where you retreat and I advance or you lose and I win; the two countries are fully capable of achieving mutual success and benefiting from win-win cooperation,” he said.
His organisation said he had also met a variety of other people, including Bob Holden, a former governor of Missouri; Justin Smith, co-founder of the news organisation Semafor; John Thornton, co-chair of the Asia Society’s board of trustees; Clarence Anthony, the chief executive of the National League of Cities; and Thomas Shannon, a former undersecretary of state.
This week Yang moved on to Texas, where he met Neil Bush, the son of the former president George Bush Snr and chairman of his father’s foundation for US-China relations, and attended an Asia Society Texas event where he urged young Americans to join exchange programmes.
The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which was founded in 1954, has long been a primary conduit of Beijing for fostering non-governmental exchanges with Washington that paved the way for official contacts.
It took an active part in two key events in the run-up to the establishment of formal relations in 1979: a tour of China by a US table tennis team and a visit by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Last month Yang outlined a number of priorities for the year, including greater cooperation between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and the bay areas in New York and San Francisco.
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However, despite the increase in official and non-official exchanges, tensions between the two countries are still running high.
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