[April 19, 2006]

In Seattle, Hu Focuses on Trade and Cooperation

(Newsbytes Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)SEATTLE, April 18 -- Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived Tuesday in the Pacific Northwest where trade issues have been carefully massaged in recent days to put a cheery face on China's chronic problems with software piracy, an undervalued currency and a soaring trade surplus with the United States.

By kicking off his visit here, the Chinese president is focusing on a region where big-ticket trade -- for Boeing aircraft and Microsoft software -- is important to both the national and local economy. The Port of Seattle has been packed for nearly a decade with ships carrying goods to and from China.

Sweetening the terms of its trade with Washington state, China pledged last week to buy 80 Boeing airplanes for $5.2 billion and moved forward this week on a promise to crack down on the use of illegal software.

At Microsoft headquarters Monday, Lenovo Group Ltd., which last year bought IBM's personal computer assets, signed an agreement valued at $1.2 billion to pre-install Windows on its computers made in China. It was the third of three recent deals by large Chinese computer makers to put licensed Windows software on PCs before they hit the streets.

Hu's two-day visit here is centered almost entirely on meetings at sites owned by Microsoft and Boeing. The airplane maker is now based in Chicago but still builds most of its aircraft in the Seattle area.

Local corporations paid $20,000 each for seats at a Tuesday night dinner for Hu at the lakeside mansion of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and for seats at a luncheon Wednesday in Everett. About 100 guests were expected for dinner at the well-guarded Gates compound.

Trade with China was worth more than $20 billion last year to Washington state. On a per capita basis, Washington does more business with China than any other state -- and its total trade is exceeded only by California and Texas, said Joe Borich, executive director of the Washington State China Relations Council.

In a meeting with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D), Hu said he did not choose to visit Seattle simply because it is the closest major U.S. city to China. "It is also because your state enjoys very good cooperative relations with my country," he said.

Hu's plane landed Tuesday morning north of Seattle at Paine Field in Everett, next to a Boeing assembly plant that turns out wide-body jets. Trade officials say that in a typical year it is not unusual for Chinese purchases of Boeing planes to account for 80 percent of Washington state exports to China.

After being greeted by dignitaries including Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz (whose company is expanding rapidly in China), the Chinese leader traveled across Lake Washington in the afternoon to meet with Gates at the company's sprawling campus in Redmond. Hu toured an exhibit showing high-tech homes of the future.

In downtown Seattle, Taiwanese protesters gathered near Hu's hotel, demanding that China allow the island nation to decide for itself about rejoining the mainland. Tibetans seeking independence also protested. Chinese supporters of Hu also gathered near the hotel and waved red Chinese flags.

On Monday, about 200 followers of the Falun Gong, a religion banned in China, marched in downtown Seattle. They accused the Chinese government of committing Nazi-style atrocities against their fellow believers and carried large banners, one of which said, "Stop harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners."

On Wednesday morning, Hu is scheduled to discuss U.S.-Chinese relations in a private meeting with former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and others from the board of the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

One of the most publicized aspects of Hu's visit to Seattle was the list of what he is going to have for supper Tuesday at Gates's mansion.

The secret was unveiled by Microsoft on Monday, and the menu is dominated by food from the Northwest, including Walla Walla onions, local asparagus, Granny Smith apples, Alaskan halibut and wines from eastern Washington.

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