Chinese on Buying Trip in U.S. Seek to Pave Way for Leader

By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
April 5, 2006

BEIJING, April 5 — Chinese leaders, eager to improve relations with the United States ahead of the maiden visit there by President Hu Jintao this month, have dispatched a large delegation of business and economic officials to display China's buying power and to cool protectionist sentiment in Congress, Chinese officials said Wednesday.

The buying mission, the largest by China since re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States in 1979, reflects Beijing's view that it may be easier to try to lower economic tensions than to satisfy some other American demands, like doing more to help curtail nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and reducing human rights abuses at home.

More than 100 business executives joined Wu Yi, China's vice prime minister and economic troubleshooter, on an American tour that began Tuesday in Hawaii and is scheduled to cover 13 states. The trip is expected to result in multibillion-dollar orders for Boeing aircraft, auto parts, computer software, telecommunications equipment, grain, cotton and other products, Chinese officials and the state news media said.

China has practiced such checkbook diplomacy before, notably during the prolonged fight to win American support for its entry into the World Trade Organization in the late 1990's.

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