hirty years to the day after President Richard Nixon's historic arrival in Beijing on February 21, 1972, when he emerged from his Boeing 707, hand extended, to grip Premier Zhou Enlai's hand in what Premier Zhou described as the longest handshake in history—across an ocean and a gulf of more than 20 years—President George W. Bush's Boeing 747 touched ground in Beijing. Trade was a key component of that 1972 rapprochement and, indeed, Premier Zhou requested that President Nixon establish a "peoples' organization" to deal with bilateral trade issues in the absence of diplomatic relations. Thus, 30 years ago this month, the National Council for United States-China Trade, as the US-China Business Council was then called, was born. Total two-way trade in 1972 amounted to $95.9 million. In 2002, this amount reached $120 billion. You must be doing something right!

Ambassador Christopher H. Phillips, Melvin W. Searls, Jr., Eugene A. Theroux, Nicholas Ludlow, and myself were among those intrepid early pioneers at the National Council. I recall reading the New York Times article announcing the Council's establishment and Ambassador Phillips' appointment. I was in my second year of law school. In 1964, my dad had advised me that China was the future and, in 1968, the US Air Force had taught me Chinese. I was ready and immediately wrote to Ambassador Phillips to apply for a summer job.

The summer job researching and writing about the first technology licensing transactions between United States petrochemical companies and China's TECHIMPORT (now China National Technical Import and Export Corp., or CNTIC) and about early intellectual property rights issues in China turned into a full-time job when the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), the Council's host organization in China, suddenly approved the Council's application to establish an office at the semi-annual Guangzhou (Canton) Trade Fair, then the conduit for the overwhelming majority of China's foreign trade. Would I consider dropping out of law school temporarily to travel to Guangzhou to establish the Council's trade facilitation office at the Dongfang Hotel for the Fall Tour of 1974 and, afterwards, travel to Beijing for meetings with the CCPIT, the eight Chinese foreign trade corporations, and the chief of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing, George H. W. Bush? I did not have to be asked twice.

I shall never forget departing the Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel in September 1974, on foot with a caravan of trolleys being pushed by a fleet of white-jacketed bellmen from the hotel. We followed the train tracks along the harbor's edge to Victoria Station. The train stopped at the Lowu Bridge, in those days a narrow wooden trestle separating Hong Kong from the mainland. We disembarked from the Hong Kong train and crossed the bridge on foot. On the mainland side, I was greeted by young People's Liberation Army soldiers in baggy uniforms and was quickly taken aside by Chinese Customs officers, curious to know what was in all my trunks and boxes. I recall that, as the Chinese soldiers and Customs officers led me and my cargo away for inspection, a traveler on the train from Hong Kong yelled cheerily in a thick British accent, "Lock the Yank up and throw away the keys!" I was not reassured.

Our bilateral trade and investment with China has been the cornerstone of the US-China bilateral relationship. When I first arrived in Beijing to take up my post as ambassador in July 2001, the question that every Chinese leader asked me was, "When is the US economy going to recover?" The direct link between the United States' economy and China's economic growth and reform is clear. For 30 years, the Council has ably shepherded this critical component of our bilateral relationship through good times and bad, bringing our two great nations and peoples closer together through mutually beneficial trade and investment.

Today, under the superb veteran leadership of Bob Kapp, the Council continues to serve its members through its permanent offices in Beijing and Shanghai and, of course, through its principal office in Washington, DC. I am proud to have played a small part in the Council's history, congratulate you on your thirtieth birthday, and wish you continued success for the future.