When President Xi Jinping begins his US visit by landing in "the other Washington" and meeting with 15 US business titans along with the 15 Chinese CEOs who accompany him, he will deliver a profound message to the global community: Conducting diplomacy at the White House and the UN will be important, but so is the need to convene productive dialogue with US-based companies doing business in China and vice-versa.
On another level, this meeting - with companies that aspire to be and in many cases are global champions - also sends a message about the integration of the global economy and the continuous need to build stakeholder understanding and acceptance to facilitate it.
By demonstrating a willingness to meet with US-based global executives whose companies have had a wide range of experiences in their China ventures, Xi will create a platform to inspire greater understanding among that group and a far broader audience of corporate and financial leaders, consumers, workers and NGOs about how China is facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship in its economy, while increasing integration and driving progress in the global innovation system.
The need for such dialogue has never been greater, not only because of recent and past challenges facing US-based multinationals in the Chinese business ecosystem and the myriad barriers faced by Chinese companies in the US.
And not only because the economies of both countries - the two leading economic powers in the world - are inexorably linked and affected by international trade and commerce. The mutual understanding and cooperation fostered by this kind of business-oriented summit in Seattle is especially important given the deep differences in perceptions about business and other topics in each country.
These differences came clearly into focus recently in a massive global survey conducted jointly by CNBC and Burson-Marsteller: Corporate Perception Indicator: A Global Compass. Designed to explore how corporations and the people who run them are perceived in key markets around the world, we surveyed 25,000 individuals in the general public and more than 1,800 corporate executives in 25 countries, including the US and China. The results differed starkly between the general public in China and the US.
The Chinese public has a significantly more positive opinion of corporations than its US counterpart. Nearly 8 in 10 respondents in China said they had a generally favorable view of corporations, compared with only 49 percent in the US.
When asked which has more influence and power in the society - the government or corporations - the US general public was 10 times more likely to say corporations have more power.
In perhaps the most striking finding in the survey, 84 percent of the Chinese public have positive perceptions about the role of corporations in supporting progress; only 36 percent of Americans held such views.
The survey highlights the deep suspicions among many Americans about corporations and corporate executives. They see them as being driven primarily by greed and as benefiting from favoritism by the government. And many Americans are even more wary of foreign companies, especially as they get older. The survey found that Americans 35 years or older are more likely than Millennials (18 to 34 years olds) to react negatively to outsourcing by US companies and much more likely to favor products made in America.
Those and similar findings provide an important backdrop to all aspects of the momentous week ahead. Concerns such as these are part of what drives both US political leaders and business executives, because those respondents are voters and they are consumers, and they are employees or potential employees. And too often they lack understanding of China and appreciation of its contributions to the US economy or its rich and diverse cultural heritage.
Against this backdrop, the Seattle US-China Internet Industry Forum will have deep symbolic importance. The focus of this forum on technology and innovation is of course meaningful on both sides of the Pacific - as each country pursues an innovation-driven economic agenda. It is important to note that the populations in both countries - and those throughout the world - expressed the highest level of favorability in our survey toward the technology industry. To be sure, there are deep divisions between the two countries related to aspects of this industry, and they won't be instantly resolved in this one conference. Companies from each country have encountered difficult challenges in the regulatory environment of the other, often for reasons that transcend commerce.
But some of the most prominent of those companies will be at the table in Seattle. They are showing their hope is still strong while signaling an ambition for increased integration and win-win collaboration. Meanwhile, by convening this historic dialogue as a first step in his first state visit to the United States, President Xi is sending a message that China will seek to play an increasing role as an equal partner in driving global technology and innovation.
Patrick Ford is vice-chairman of Burson-Marsteller. He served for three years as Asia-Pacific Chairman and previously was president and chief executive of the firm's US region.
(China Daily USA 09/23/2015 page12)
