The White House Business Council is a newly formed agency under the Obama Administration tasked with ensuring that contacts with the business community are routed to the appropriate policy makers in the White House. Elizabeth made it clear to all of us that, as the Obama Administration considers the U.S. China commercial relationship a top priority, the input and feedback from the American business community in China is crucial. She urged us to continue speaking with her on matters of importance to AmCham Shanghai members and to stay in touch.

Nor Coquillard led off the discussion with an overview of our key messages on the doorknock and a run-down on who we had met with and the reception we received. Elizabeth and her team, Fred Baldessaro, Senior Advisor at the Office of Business Affairs at the Treasury Department and Dr. Kavita Patel, Policy Director at the White House, were particularly interested in data we provided regarding the trade promotion activities of our strongest competition in China – the EU nations, Japan and Korea. Also of great interest was AmCham Shanghai’s recently released China Greentech Report. We provided copies of the report and Elizabeth promised to forward it to Fred Nelson, the White House Business Council lead on the environment and technology, among others. As the Waxman-Markey climate change bill in the House is in the process of being marked up, Elizabeth asked us to provide feedback and input on the bill and on priorities for developing the greentech market in China.

Nor and Brenda led the AmCham side of the discussion by providing an on-the-ground perspective of the impact of China’s stimulus package & economic performance expectations for the coming year, how the S&ED and the other government-to-government interactions can be most effectively used to help AmCham Shanghai member and Chinese measures that have had the effect, if not the intent, of being protectionist. Brookings then provided their views on the U.S.-China relationship (below) as well as the current political environment in D.C. regarding China and China trade.
At the end of this very productive discussion, roundtable participants discussed ways in which AmCham Shanghai and Brookings can work together moving forward. A particular focus was given to AmCham Shanghai’s work promoting the greentech market in China. Follow up meetings with Brookings were scheduled and carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss next steps and attended by AmCham Shanghai Environmental Committee leaders Charlie McElwee and Tom McCawley.

Ken and his team provided their thoughts on the U.S. China relationship:
• U.S. policy makers, while impressed with the impact of the stimulus program, have concerns that the dramatic increase in infrastructure construction will lead to overcapacity 2-3 years from now and that government money is being given primarily to state-owned enterprises at the expense of private Chinese industry.
• For the Chinese economy to move forward, personal consumption must continue to increase as part of China’s GDP. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll see a drag on China’s economy after the stimulus package is expended. While long term prospects are positive, the next few years could be challenging.
• Brookings believes U.S. consumer spending is not going to get back to pre-recession levels any time soon, savings rates are increasing. U.S. policy makers must make it clear to Chinese officials that a reliance on exports to the U.S. to drive economic growth, as it has in the past, is a bad strategy. This is an important message to deliver at this weekend’s G-20 in Pittsburg and it is an important message for organizations like AmCham Shanghai to deliver when engaging Chinese officials back in Shanghai.
• Lack of domestic consumption is a problem throughout Southeast Asia, not only in China. S.E. Asian nations must increase domestic consumption if their economies are to grow at sufficient rates.
• Ken and his team supported AmCham’s doorknock messages but let us know that we should expect push back on Capitol Hill, in particular the House. Members are focused on the U.S. domestic economy and in particular job growth in their home districts. Protectionism on the Hill is very apparent but is more a reaction to the times rather than a long term lack of support for exports to China and U.S. business operations in China. That being said, messaging will have to be fine tuned so that a direct connection can be made between the U.S.-China commercial relationship and job creation and economic growth in the U.S.
• Brookings recognizes the growing opportunity for U.S. companies but also sees a reverse in China market reforms and an increasing effort on the government’s part to develop national champions in key industries that could limit foreign invested enterprises from participating equally in China’s booming market.
• China’s market is critical to American companies, as are other global markets, not only because the U.S. domestic market is still recovering but the American economy is mature and won’t grow fast enough in even the best case scenario. Foreign markets provide American companies vital growth opportunities.
Bios:
Ken Lieberthal – director of the John L. Thornton China Center and senior fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution. He was also Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Asia at the National Security Council during the Clinton Administration.

Barry Bosworth – A former presidential advisor, Barry Bosworth is an expert on fiscal and monetary policy, economic growth, capital formation, and Social Security. His recent projects include studies of U.S. saving behavior and economic growth in China and India.

Richard Bush – Richard is the Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Institute. He has a two-decade public service career spans Congress, the intelligence community and the U.S. State Department. He currently focuses on China-Taiwan relations, U.S.-China relations, the Korean peninsula and Japan’s security.

Dennis C. Wilder – A visiting fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center and Foreign Policy at Brookings. Mr. Wilder served as special assistant to the president and senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council from December 2005 until January 2009.

During our trip, the delegation met with the Peterson Institute, led by C. Fred Bergston, a former Ass’t Secretary of Treasury credited with driving the “G-2” (China and the U.S.) concept. Delegates also met with Charles Freeman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Formerly the US Trade Representative for Greater China, Charles is a long time friend of AmCham Shanghai. And finally we met with the Brookings Institute led by well known China expert and author, Ken Lieberthal.

For a run-down on Monday’s discussion at Brookings, please see the post – A Roundtable with Brookings.

Delegates started out with a 7:45am breakfast meeting before heading off in teams to our various meetings. I joined the group going to the Department of Commerce to meet with the Acting Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, Rochelle Lipsitz. We expressed our thanks to her for the Commercial Service’s efforts to expand export opportunities for U.S. companies. We also told her that we would be advocating for additional resources for the USCS in our meetings on the Hill.

We then headed to the House side of the Capitol to meet with Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), co-Chair of the U.S. China Working Group. This followed yesterday’s meeting with Rick Larsen (D-WA), Kirk’s co-Chair in the Working Group. Kirk and his staff updated us on the status of the Working Group’s competitiveness agenda and thanked us for our efforts to gain co-sponsors to the U.S.-China Market Engagement and Export Promotion Act, which has growing support and thirteen co-sponsors as of today.

Further briefings and meetings with members of Congress and the Administration.  In all, the delegation had nineteen different meetings today and now we’re all off to dinner to take a breather and prepare for an evening busier day tomorrow.

We have found in some of our meetings that members of Congress and their staffs do not always understand the important and valuable roles that government entities such as the U.S. Commercial Service (USCS) play in facilitating exports of U.S. goods and services. Given how much Congress and the Administration have on their plate, funding for export promotion programs may seem relatively small – the USCS budget this year is $237 million) – but they can have a tremendous impact. In fact, the World Bank estimates that for every one dollar spent on export promotion programs, forty dollars in exports are generated, and when the money is targeted towards developing economies in Asia, it’s one hundred dollars in sales per one dollar spent. We will continue to share our message with Congress, the Administration and other groups to raise awareness and build support for the bills I mentioned in an earlier post, and encourage companies that have benefitted from these programs to share their stories with their representatives and senators.

On another note, members of the delegation shared their on-the-ground perspective as part of an event organized by the East West Center. A wide range of attendees from the business, academic, public policy worlds as well as from government were in attendance. It was a great opportunity for us to share out message about U.S. competitiveness and the importance of the U.S.-China commercial relationship.

More directly related to AmCham member’s day to day business conerns, Rep. Wu was enthusiastic about AmCham Shanghai’s China Greentech Report, released on September 9th at the Dalian, China World Economic Forum. Rep. Wu offered to continue working with AmCham on Greentech and clean energy and partnering with Portland based companies and organizations was discussed.   

We look forward to Rep. Wu’s next visit to Shanghai and hope to see him soon!

Mike Culver of BGR working hard to flag a cab

A successful doorknock would not be complete without its share of challenges. The delegates of Doorknock 2009 have had their share! As many of you know, President Obama is trying to do what many presidents before him have attempted and failed to do – healthcare reform.  And this is the week the competing  bills are being marked up which threatens to “suck the air of the room” ( a popular DC expression for dominating the attention of lawmakers that I have adopted) and throwing the schedules of elected officials into chaos. 

But today our delegates confronted a real and present threat that if faced by a lesser delegation, would have derailed our doorknock entirely. A Taxi strike!  As  anyone who has been to Washington and Capitol Hill knows, important congressional offices, think tanks, administrative staff, hotels, and restaraunts are strewn all over the City.  Weighed down by briefing books, greentech reports, delegate brochures and stacks of business cards, our delegates did their best to overcome.  Walking, we found, is a great way to see our nation’s capitol while getting some much needed exercise, gypsy cabs are quite as bad as everyone says they are and most of us are now well aquainted with the Metro system of our nation’s capitol.  Yet another obstacle adapted to and overcome!

Promoting export growth is a goal shared by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose leadership met with the Doorknock delegation on Monday. John Engler, the former Michigan governor and current president of NAM, emphasized that more needs to be done by the U.S. Government to encourage U.S. companies to sell American made goods overseas. AmCham Shanghai members highlighted the U.S.-China Market Engagement and Export Promotion Act (H.R.2310/S.1616), sponsored by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) in the House and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in the Senate, which would provide much needed resources for U.S. businesses to navigate China’s markets.

AmCham Shanghai and NAM additionally agreed that a review of U.S. export control regulations is needed to improve our competitiveness, and that the U.S must be more aggressive internationally in advocating for U.S. standards.

All in all it was a great conversation with a leading business organization that, while different in mission from AmCham Shanghai, shares a common goal of improving the U.S.’s competitiveness abroad.

from left to right, David Basmajian, Chairman Nor Coquillard, Charlie McElwee, and Ben Kinnas on the "Speaker's Balcony" at the U.S. Capitol Buildling

Members of the AmCham Shanghai Doorknock delegation, many arriving in D.C. only the night before after 20+ hour flights from Shanghai, Beijing and points beyond, began the 2009 Washington D.C. doorknock at 8am Monday morning with strong coffee, a hearty breakfast and the “do’s and don’ts” of doorknock meetings provided by Jonathan Mantz, resident Capitol Hill insider and Managing Director of the BGR group, AmCham’s government relations firm.

Briefing books in hand, the jetlagged but determined delegation branched out across the Capitol to communicate the importance of enhancing U.S. competitiveness in China to elected officials, administration staff and other top D.C. thought leaders. Doorknock Chair Phil Branham and Tom McCawley led off the doorknock with a morning meeting at the Department of Energy. David Sandalow, Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs was briefed on business opportunities in China’s accelerating greentech market and presented with AmCham Shanghai’s China Greentech Report. AmCham Shanghai Board Chairman Nor Coquillard led a team that included Charlie McElwee and Ben Kinnas to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff, Jonathan Stivers. AmCham Shanghai is supporting a key piece of legislation on the Hill, the “US China Market Engagement and Export Promotion Act” (H.R. 2310/Senate Bill 1616) that will increase funding for much needed export and trade promotion programs. The bill will help U.S. companies, especially SMEs, compete in China against our European, Japanese and Korean competition. The delegates were encouraged by Jonathan’s interest in the bill and his assurances that the Speaker was aware of the legislation and that she would support its progress in the House.

The entire delegation then met at the Brookings Institution for a roundtable discussion with Ken Lieberthal and other noted China experts. Nor and AmCham President Brenda Foster moderated the discussion that provided AmCham’s perspective on the importance of engagement with China, how engagement benefits U.S. companies as well as China’s domestic stimulus plan and its impact on China’s economy. Ken and his team discussed the current mood in Washington toward U.S.-China relations and the three key priorities of every American elected official in Washington which are, first, to create American jobs, second, to create American jobs, and finally, to create American jobs! AmCham’s well established messages regarding the importance of U.S.-China trade to drive American economic growth and “create American jobs” was well received and will be the cornerstone of our messages moving forward this week.

Next stop, the BGR office for a meeting with the former three-term Michigan Governor and current president of the National Association of Manufacturers, John Engler.