Partnership or competition?

When the Chamber finalized the idea of a business leaders' trip to China, we guessed that about 50 local business people might want to go. Instead, more than 200 signed up, with more than 40 on a waiting list.
The overwhelming response was due, I think, to the tremendous amount of curiosity about China's economic miracle.
China was a backward third-world country just 30 years ago. Now it's an economic powerhouse that in 2006 contributed more than one-third of the entire world's economic growth. China has been called both the largest threat to the U.S. economy and the largest business opportunity, sometimes by the same pundits.
As much as we used to think San Luis Obispo is isolated from the world economy, most local business people now realize that we are integrated into the global economy and directly impacted by worldwide economic trends.
So we're here to find out what we might need to survive in a future competition--or partnership--with China.
Earlier tonight in our headquarters hotel we held a successful Sino-American business conference that connected our business leaders with more than 50 Beijing business leaders. Everyone was there to find either a new customer or supplier in the other country. Only time will tell if these contacts prove fruitful, but most everybody seemed pleased with the information exchanged. Throughout our somewhat tiring 14 hour today we also toured cultural landmarks, traditional craft factories, and an historic residential neighborhood. The stark contradictions continue to amaze me. The candor of our guides seems out of place in a controlled society; today our guide even pointed out where the student democracy rally in Tianmen Square occurred just 18 years ago and the exact spot the student almost held back the tank.
The party congress was meeting in the square today so security was very evident. Yet, everywhere else in the city the army and police are no more visible that they are in a major U.S. city and do not brandish weapons. This isn't what I expected a "police state" to look like.
-- Dave Garth