China will seek to quadruple the size of its economy in the next 15 years, its ambassador to the United States said in a speech Wednesday evening to more than 150 business and community leaders in downtown Denver.
“China needs to create 24 million new jobs a year” to accommodate its population, but it can create only 10 million given the current size of its economy, Zhou Wenzhong said in a speech at the Pinnacle Club.
Zhou acknowledged that the path China will take “is a concern to many people.” But his remarks to the group were conciliatory.
“It is a priority for us that there is peace in the world,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Zhou met with Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper as well as with executives of Gates Corp. and Western Union before a dinner with electronics executives.
Hickenlooper met with Zhou in the morning. Denver is one of the few cities with a trade mission in the country.
“In public life, you occasionally meet people who impress you with their warmth and intellectual capacity,” Hickenlooper said. “He was very impressive.”
Zhou also met with Gates president Richard Bell, had lunch at Invesco Field at Mile High with local energy-industry executives and visited Western Union’s headquarters in Greenwood Village.
Western Union operates about 22,000 money-transfer locations across China – about 10 percent of its locations worldwide – through agreements it has with the China Post and the Agricultural Bank of China.
“We spent a half hour discussing the ways in which Western Union has expanded in China,” said Victor Chayet, Western Union spokesman. The ambassador also discussed Chinese immigrant communities and how the company could serve their needs.
The ambassador also caught a few of the tourist sites in town, including Red Rocks and the Denver Botanic Gardens, where he sat for a photo with a 1-ton bronze peacock sculpture that Denver’s sister city of Kunming donated in 2001.
“It was real quick. He wanted to see the sculpture,” said Holly Shrewsbury, a spokeswoman at the gardens.
He was to wrap up his day by having dinner with local members of the American Electronics Association, a technology-industry trade group.
Zhou, previously China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, became the country’s U.S. ambassador in April. From 1995 to 1998, he served as the deputy chief of missions in the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Coinciding with the ambassador’s visit, the Rocky Mountain World Trade Institute sponsored a day of seminars on trading with China.
Developing connections, “guan-xi,” is vital to doing business in China, as are personal commitments or ties, “ren- qing,” said Boulder-based consultant Hai Yan Zhang.
Businesses operating in China also need to maintain a strict sense of hierarchy and protocol.
“You need the respect of people to manage them,” said Hai Yan. “You need to be friendly, but not a friend.”
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-820-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
