Q&A: President Xi Jinping’s US state visit was ‘enormous success – or as we’d say, a home run’
Stephen Orlins, head of National Committee on United States-China Relations, who co-hosted October dinner for Xi in Seattle before his US state visit in Washington in September
Stephen Orlins, 65, first worked on US-Sino ties in 1977.
The Harvard law graduate and former diplomat and Hong Kong banker with Lehman Brothers Asia heads the non-profit National Committee on United States-China Relations.
He co-hosted last month's dinner for President Xi Jinpingin Seattle before his US state visit in Washington.
He spoke to KEIRA LU HUANG.
I arrived in Beijing in 1979. It took about 25 hours to fly from New York, to Tokyo, Shanghai and finally Beijing. Driving with my wife from the old Beijing airport to the Beijing Hotel, where I lived for the next couple of years, I did not see another car on the road. I was there to teach contract law to Beijing municipal officials, and also represent foreign companies investing in China now that it had opened up.
I was fortunate to join the US State Department in 1976 after graduation. As I'd studied Chinese [while at Harvard], after a year I joined a team preparing to set up diplomatic relations with China. I was 28 when they were established.
I introduced President Xi to many American businessmen [at the dinner]. When the line of people waiting to meet him was finished, and everyone had shaken his hand, I said, 'There is one person that hasn't taken a photo with you, and that is me', and he smiled. Then we shook hands and smiled at the camera. He seemed very energised; he was very warm.
It was interesting to hear him describe the literature he has read - including Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea ... it's humanising: it's not policy, it just makes him someone that American people can understand, someone who cares about the world. It was an enormous success … as we would say, a home run
His speech at the dinner was one of the most unusual I've ever heard a Chinese leader give. The audience gave him a deserved standing ovation.
He was telling the American people that, when you look at China, you need to understand that in just one generation we've come from where we were to where we are today.
Conveying this kind of an approach - talking about their roots and how that has formed their thinking - is what a US politician would do: it allows the American government and the people to understand what forms his judgments. They may not agree with it all, but will at least understand. I haven't heard a leader do it outside of China, I thought that was extremely effective.
It was also interesting to hear him describe the literature he has read - including Ernest Hemingway's - and of going to [Havana's El Floridita] bar where Hemingway went, and having the [rum] mojito [cocktails] Hemingway drank. Again, it's humanising: it's not policy, it just makes him someone that American people can understand, someone who cares about the world, reads, and is interested in foreign cultures. It was an enormous success … as we would say, a home run.
