The Chinese luminaries dispatched this week to New York to warm American hearts included former National Basketball Association star Yao Ming, who played for the Houston Rockets from 2002 to 2011; former IMF deputy chairman Zhu Min; Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University; and novelist Hao Jingfang.
“It is really the power of people, the sense of people, the warmth of people, to build the foundation of the Chinese relationship,” said Zhu, who led the delegation. He and others spoke at the Chinese consulate in New York before screens displaying a Xi quote on the importance of people framed by pink blossoms and a bird.
Even as the speakers exuded optimism and touted the importance of a new, softer approach; they conceded that relations have been in deep freeze, with little likelihood of a quick turnaround.
A Pew survey released in July found 83 per cent of Americans viewed China unfavourably compared with 14 per cent who saw the Asian giant in a positive light.
This compared with 47 per cent unfavourable and 38 per cent favourable five years earlier. Recent polling of Chinese has shown a parallel jump in negative views towards Americans.
A key problem on both sides, Da said, was that too many issues were being framed in the context of national security.
“We over-securitise. Everything could be a security issue,” the former Atlantic Council senior fellow said. A bottle of mineral water could be a security issue because it’s supplied to the People’s Liberation Army, he added.
The visiting delegation called on Washington to drop its punitive trade tariffs and on both sides to expand the number of flights, cultural exchanges and journalist postings, which have all fallen off in recent years.
Zhu said that while China’s economy needed to undergo restructuring after decades of overreliance on real estate, it was not in a downward structural spiral.
China’s bid this week to improve US people-to-people ties is welcome, analysts said, but it is not clear how immediately effective it will be.