Article 2: Inland Empire China Delegation mixes business, pleasure
Article 3: March China Trip
Article 4: Anaheim Chamber mission to China 2002
Article 5: Corona Chamber trip to China
Article 6: China tours big lure for local merchants

Article 1: Business Leaders Make Contacts in China
Douglas Haberman
Inland Valley Times
January 11, 2001

On a nine-day trip to China, a group of 234 business people, most from the Inland Valley, saw the Great Wall, one had a run-in with the police in Tiananmen Square and some made business contacts that could prove fruitful, participants said Wednesday. The delegation returned in Saturday. It was organized by Leo Liu, a Monterey Park resident from China who regularly brings delegations of Chinese officials to meet city officials at Inland Chambers of commerce. The cost per person was $1,099.

Chambers Delegates at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

"It was beautiful, quite an experience," said Bob Traister, executive vice president if the Ontario Chamber. " They treated us like royalty."

Trip participants said the new buildings and cleanliness of the four cities they visited- Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou - impressed them.

"China is not some backward country with no running water," said April Morris, president of Associated Engineers in Ontario. "If they're considered Third World, it gives new meaning to the word."

She added, however "I'm sure we didn't see the seedier sides of the cities."

The hospitality of the Chinese was notable, participants said. Big banners welcoming the "Inland Empire delegation" greeted them at all their hotels, for example, they said. The group traveled in six buses with a police escort, stayed in four-star and five-star hotels and met a number of Chinese officials, from the mayor of Suzhou to the executive director at the equivalent of Beijing's visitors and convention bureau, Traister said. The most dramatic moment came when the group was at Tiananmen Square, he said. Member of Falum Gong, a spiritual group outlawed by China in July 1999, are protesting in the square and the Americans were warned not to take photographs of them or police. But police say one woman in the Inland Valley delegation take pictures so the sped over, seized her camera and exposed the film before returning it to her, Traister said. She was almost arrested, he said.

Great Wall of China

On a more positive note, San Bernardino business owner Greg Wolfe said he was able to meet some people in Suzhou to whom he has been selling pipes, sinks, toilets and other made-in-the-USA, plumbing supplies. He also met officials in the city of Hangzhou. south of Shanghai, who are looking for Westerners to contract out manufacturing to Chinese plants.

"It's definitely opened my eyes to possibilities" of doing this, possibly for certain water system components, Wolfe said.

Don Driftmier, a Rancho Cucamonga certified public accountant and member of a U.S. Department of Commerce District Export Council, said anyone on the trip who wanted to meet Chinese business and civic officials for possible deals down the road had the opportunity.

And the opportunities abound in China, he said.

"They're an economic force to be reckoned with," Driftmier said.