Fulfill Iowa-China relationship

By Shuai Zhang

----

In February, Vice President Xi Jinping of China visited Iowa and made a short stop in Muscatine, where he had visited 27 years ago when he was a county leader in China. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad made a lot of effort to bring Xi to Iowa again. Branstad's long-term strategy is to maintain a good relationship with China for future business opportunity.

As an outside observer, there is a great opportunity for Iowa businesses and professionals to benefit Iowa's economy in the long-term.

As a rapidly growing country, China overtook Japan as the world's second-biggest economy in 2010. The $7.2 trillion-plus annual gross domestic product and 1.3 billion people brings a lot of opportunities to Iowa. However, Iowa is not taking full take advantage of this booming cycle in China so far.

According to the U.S.-China Business Council 2011 report, Iowa exported $627 million to China in 2010. However, Iowa exported $3.4 billion to Canada, $1.8 billion to Mexico and $854 million to Japan. In the national ranking, Iowa is far behind South Carolina ($2.2 billion) and Alabama ($1.9 billion) in exports to China.

In the past few years, U.S. media are filled with “China threat” theory by American hawks who fear China's rapidly increasing military and economic power. They forget an old proverb: Each coin has two sides.

Chinese people benefit from increasing globalization. In many perspectives, such as education and agriculture, Chinese people are coming with appreciation of Iowa. In higher education, Chinese students are found at most of colleges and universities in Iowa. Many of them perform well in academics and contribute to high-quality development in science and technology fields. Many agriculture experts from China study and research Iowa's strong agricultural technology.

Xi's visit delivers a clear message that a China-U.S. relationship should be mutually beneficial. For Iowa, Xi Jinping's visit has brought more business opportunity in China. Iowa's elected officials can visit China to meet entrepreneurs interested in your state. For Iowa students, try an eye-opening study abroad. For local business owners and farmers, the Chinese market is a great possibility to expand your business.

Building barriers and continuing stereotypes won't help Iowa benefit from globalization and a rapid developing China.

Remember Xi's message during Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds' visit to China in March: “The two sides should focus on the long-term mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation, size up the situation, make best use of existing mechanisms and platforms, give full play to the regional advantages, adhere to the principle of mutual benefit and raise the bilateral regional cooperation to higher levels and benefit the two peoples within the framework of boosting the China-U.S. cooperative partnership.”

Shuai Zhang of China is a senior finance major student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. After serving an internship as an information analyst with a postal/logistics company in China, he came to the United States in 2009 to pursue a college degree. Comments: 009811@gmail.com