Kansas, China Build Trade Ties
BEIJING, China -- Karl Zhao seeks opportunities.
Opportunity took him to America from his native China 11 years ago, when he opened an office for his province in Chicago. It took him back to China four years ago when he did the reverse -- opening a state office for New Jersey in Beijing.
Now he sees opportunity in Kansas. And even though his only visit to Kansas was a two-day trip last summer, Zhao may play an important role in the state's future prosperity.
Zhao leads Kansas' new state office in Beijing. He now seeks what Kansas seeks: prosperity through growing global trade.
"Kansas has what China wants," said Zhao, 41. "That's what really got me about this job."
Kansas opened its Beijing trade office last month during Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' trade mission to China.
The office is a response to Kansas' growing business with China, an expanding market for agriculture, aviation, energy and education.
According to U.S. trade statistics, China is the state's fourth-largest trading partner. At current growth rates it could become No. 3, after Canada and Mexico, this year.
Kansas already operates trade offices in Great Britain, Mexico, Taiwan and Japan.
Each office serves Kansas businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses. The offices offer businesses resources they couldn't afford on their own -- from an in-country fax machine and telephone to representation at networking and other business events.
Which services are more important varies from country to country, said John Watson, who directs trade development for the Kansas Department of Commerce.
For example, while the Great Britain office urges British companies to invest in Kansas, the China office will focus more on building partnerships with Chinese businesses in China. In each case, the office focuses on the potential benefits each region can offer the other.
"We react to whatever goes on," Watson said.
In China, Zhao said, perhaps the most important reason for a state office is to get China's government, which still largely controls the national economy, to take a business seriously.
"Although China talks about having a market economy, this is still not a market economy," Zhao said. "Business practice is heavily combined with government operations.
"American businesses can't possibly imagine how involved the government is in China, and governments want to communicate with other governments," he continued.
"Working through a state adds a lot of credibility. The government sees a state promoting a product or service, helping a company, and suddenly China's government takes that business seriously.
"It may not make sense in the U.S., but welcome to China."
Translating China to Americans, and vice versa, has become Zhao's life work. It started in high school when Zhao, a student in Jilin province in northeast China, fell in love with the literature of Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe.
The interest in "the literature of a new nation" sparked an interest in America for Zhao, who goes by Karl in his job but whose given name is Yi.
After teaching English for several years, he decided to live where English is the common language, spending the 1990s in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He retains permanent American residency status, but has a Chinese wife and one daughter.
In 2001, he decided to return home.
"When I left China 11 years ago, I wasn't sure it was on the right path," he said. Now he's more confident.
Even though the country still isn't a democracy, its entrance into the World Trade Organization, its hosting of the 2008 Olympics and the improvement that freer markets have brought to many Chinese lives "makes the government work harder to do things the right way," he said.
Applying his experience in America to China, he first set up a state office for New Jersey. When that office was thrown into turmoil by New Jersey government scandals, Kansas considered him for the new outpost it contemplated.
With a $50,000 annual contract with the state commerce department that covers Zhao, a three-person staff and a 1,300-square-foot office in a new 31-story Beijing office building, the office opened for business this fall.
It has a reception area, Kansas-themed decorations and two offices -- one of which currently holds a bed for Zhao to sleep in should the workday end with late-night teleconferences with Topeka.
Kansas' potential for trade with China justifies the effort, he said.
"I wouldn't do this if I weren't wholly committed to it," he said.
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