Getting To Know One Another

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Mark Kirk
Member, U.S. House of Representatives
The number one issue right now is North Korea and U.S. joint diplomacy. North Korea utterly depends on China for fuel and food. If China were to interrupt those supplies, a Chinese initiative to North Korea would be listened to.

Kang Chul Hwan
North Korean defector, met President Bush in June
First, they should fine-tune their positions on the North Korean nuclear issue in order to resolve it. Second, I hope President Bush will discuss the issue of North Korean refugees in China. China has been so hard on these refugees that I hope the U.S. will work to protect these people somehow.

Fred Hu

Managing Director, Goldman Sachs (Asia), Hong Kong
Despite stunning economic and social progress in the past quarter of a century, the average American still paints China in red: a nation seized by radical communist ideologies. In reality, today's China is a freewheeling and prosperous capitalist economy, rapidly converging on an American-style economic and social system based on entrepreneurship and free trade. President Hu should be China's super-salesman to convince Americans to accept China as an equal partner, not as a threatening enemy.

Ma Ying-jeou
Chairman, Kuomintang, Taiwan
The central theme of their conversation will probably focus on security and stability in the west Pacific in view of the joint military exercise by Russia and China. But as the leader of the opposition party in Taiwan, I certainly would like to see more stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Orville Schell
Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
If the two presidents could agree that an ever increasing quotient of true democracy was actually China's declared long-range goal—even though its progress in that direction might be piecemeal—the two countries might then be able to establish a more synergistic and stable basis of expectation for future collaboration on other important issues.

Richard Gere
Actor and activist
A most important issue facing President Bush and President Hu is to resolve the status of Tibet and the Tibetan people—and it is resolvable. Instead of addressing this issue in the usual rigid political framework, they should focus their discussion on human development and cultural survival as a way of achieving peace and stability in the region. By acknowledging the link between conflict and inequality, China could lead the international community in a far more constructive direction. Since economic development and cultural continuity are basic human rights, a discussion based on this framework would also allow President Bush to congratulate President Hu on China's current efforts to respect and protect human rights in China and Tibet—efforts that could greatly improve the Tibetan people's situation and enhance China's reputation internationally.

Hu Shuli
Editor, Caijing magazine, Beijing
President Hu should take the opportunity to demonstrate that China is committed to further integration with the world economic system, that this process is comprehensively irreversible, that this policy is in China's own fundamental interest, and finally, that this process will not go smoothly without help from the West, especially from the U.S.

Clyde Prestowitz
Author, Three Billion New Capitalists
As leaders of the countries at the heart of the trade picture and with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, Presidents Bush and Hu would do well to make establishing cooperation on dealing effectively with these two issues the major part of their upcoming agenda.

"Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung
Member of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong
I think President Hu should tell Bush to respect human rights. And President Bush should tell Hu to make dramatic political reform.

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