China Blog - Our Delegation

The Chinese are treating us very well here.  Our 47 person delegation, partially sponsored by the China-United States Exchange Foundation, includes 7 Urban League affiliate Presidents, several NUL staff including Marc Morial who leads the delegation, many international businessmen and several journalists.  The Chinese have quoted the 1 Trillion buying power of African Americans.  They've given our delegation the status of heads of state.  Several of our meetings have been held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.  Many of our dinners have been in halls reserved for visiting dignitaries.  We've enjoyed dinners in the same facilities President Obama enjoyed during his visit 3 months ago.
 
Today, our first full day of official visits began with a meeting with Liu Guijin who is the Chinese Special Envoy to Africa.  The Chinese place great value in their relationship with Africa who supplies energy and minerals to China.  Envoy Liu shared China's history vis-à-vis Africa.  He also clearly understands criticism of Chinese policies in Africa and addressed them with us as part of his presentation.
 
We were then transported to the Ministry of Commerce to meet with the Assistant Minister of Commerce Wang Chao.  Much of this conversation was "getting to know you", but the Assistant Minster made the point that some Chinese businesses had difficulty navigating Homeland Security requirements which, according to the subtext of the conversation, the Assistant Minster thought arbitrary.
 
We had lunch with He Yafei, Vice Foreign Minister in a beautifully appointed hall of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.  Following lunch we headed to the Haidian Christian Church.  The Church is one of 14 large Christian churches in Beijing.  The have approximately 6,000 members, many ministries, and 6 services each Sunday.  We freely discussed the impact on Church revenues resulting from the recent world financial crisis.