advertisement
advertisement
advertisement
advertisement
|
|
Join the CBR mailing list to receive updates and announcements.
Timely, relevant publications on the Chinese business climate
|
|
|
In MemoriamChristopher H. PhillipsAmbassador Christopher H. Phillips, the first president of the US-China Business Council (USCBC), passed away on January 10, 2008 at the age of 87. His long diplomatic career focused on the United Nations and included an ambassadorship to Brunei. As founding USCBC president, Phillips played an instrumental role in US-China relations. From the late 1950s through the 1960s, Phillips worked closely with the United Nations in a range of public and private sector positions, including time with Chase Manhattan Bank. His UN positions included terms as US deputy representative to the Security Council and US deputy permanent representative (a position with the rank of ambassador), where he served under then-US Ambassador to the United Nations George H. W. Bush. USCBC was founded in 1973 in the earliest stages of US-PRC relations, with strong support from the administration and the US departments of State and Commerce. Though the two countries had signed the Shanghai Communiquè in 1972, they had not yet normalized relations. Phillips and the USCBC, which was known as the National Council for US-China Trade until 1988, played an important diplomatic role in those early days, sometimes conveying messages from the highest levels of each government to the other. Several important "firsts" took place during Phillips's tenure at USCBC. In 1973, USCBC's board became the first US commercial delegation to visit China since the founding of the People's Republic 1949, while a delegation from the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, USCBC's counterpart in China, was the first PRC commercial delegation to visit the United States in 1975. During this early period in modern US-China relations, USCBC also worked closely with the China Liaison Office in Washington, DC, (the PRC's de facto embassy in the absence of formal relations) and arranged for PRC commercial officers to visit member companies across the country for the first time. USCBC's first export mission to China, made up of agrichemical experts, took place in 1976. In 1979, after relations between the two countries were normalized, then-Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping became the first PRC leader to visit the United States. During the visit, USCBC held a gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington in his honor. 
The first PRC commercial delegation to the United States meets with President Gerald Ford in 1975. (Phillips seated on right.) In 1980, USCBC hosted Vice Premier Bo Yibo, who came to Washington to co-chair the inaugural meeting of the US-China Joint Economic Commission. Phillips summed up those busy and fruitful years neatly in a letter to members on USCBC's tenth anniversary: "For both countries the first decade of trade was one of feeling our way, of establishing contacts between state and commercial institutions on both sides, and of normalizing political and economic relations. Many barriers were overcome in these years." That "many barriers were overcome" is perhaps an understatement, and credit for these early achievements is due, in large part, to Phillips. In addition to his diplomatic talents and achievements, Phillips will be remembered by his many colleagues with deep admiration for his personal qualities. Several personal remembrances follow. —USCBC Message from Former President BushAmbassador Christopher Phillips's life and career embodied the highest principles of service to our nation. We were colleagues at the United Nations, where his experience and insights were invaluable to me. Barbara and I relied on his friendship and good judgment in the early days of Sino-US relations. It was at that difficult time that Chris's leadership created the Council, and with it, the commercial relationship that has sustained bilateral relations to this day. Ambassador Phillips's ingenuity and initiative have given us a legacy of shared interests that can never be undone. Barbara and I join his family, many friends, and the Council in celebrating a life lived to the fullest, and accomplishments that leave us all in his debt. —George H. W. Bush Message from Ambassador Zhou WenzhongI was grieved to learn that Ambassador Christopher H. Phillips passed away on January 10, 2008. On behalf of the Chinese Embassy and in my own name, I wish to express our deepest condolences to his family and friends. A long-time diplomat and respected public figure, Ambassador Phillips has been known for his vision, wisdom, perseverance, and faith in helping start China-US business cooperation. He helped create the US-China Business Council and served as its founding president. He led the first US business delegation to China in 1973 before the diplomatic relationship was established. Ambassador Phillips is certainly among the most prominent Chinese and Americans whose important efforts paved the way for friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the United States. The passing of Ambassador Phillips is indeed a tremendous loss not only to his family, but also to his many friends in China. Ambassador Phillips will always be remembered as a great friend of the Chinese people. —Zhou Wenzhong Tributes from USCBC ColleaguesIt was perhaps auspicious that Chris Phillips died on January 10, 2008, aged 87, the day before Sir Edmund Hillary passed away, aged 88. Chris didn't conquer Everest, but he led another Asian expedition just as daring and daunting in its way—he personally spearheaded the development of US economic relations with China. And his leadership ensured its long-term expansion.
Just over 35 years ago, in 1973, as the head of the newly formed National Council for US-China Trade, Chris led the first American trade delegation to the People's Republic of China when the political atmosphere in Beijing was almost as rarified as it had been for Sir Hillary at the top of Everest. It was long ago, hard to conceive of now, in the dark days when Mao Zedong was in power, when little was known about the workings of the sleeping Chinese giant, when virtually no business contacts had been made between our two countries. Among the delegation that Chris led were giants of American business: Don Burnham, CEO of Westinghouse; Gabriel Hauge, Chairman of Manufacturer's Hanover Trust; Don Hewitt, Chairman of Deere & Co., and Walter Sterling Surrey, of Surrey & Morse. The group posed on the Great Wall, the first officially sanctioned American trade group to be welcome in China. Chris was himself the actual cutting edge of US efforts to develop effective and durable economic relations between the world's largest economy and the world's most populous nation, a relationship that would become a major underpinning of international relations in the decades that followed. He oversaw one of the most challenging and exciting adventures in trade expansion the world has ever seen. Since Chris and his group stood on the Great Wall 35 years ago, American trade with China has soared to over $350 billion from virtually zero. During Chris's tenure at the Council, economic relations with China expanded to include, besides trade, almost every kind of business, including foreign investment, licensing, distribution, and financial transactions. I had the fortune to work closely with Chris, or Ambassador Phillips as I knew him in those tumultuous early days, for almost a decade from the very outset of the Council. As such, I shared a working relationship with him in a pragmatic, fast-moving mission that galloped along with little time for introspection. Chris was an honorable man in the fullest sense. He had an innate sense of dignity and graciousness, steeped in the best American values of intellectual honesty, genteel civility, integrity, and compassion, rarities these days. Every word he spoke and action he took discreetly proclaimed a diplomatic heritage reaching back to the founding fathers of Massachusetts. He was born to serve his country in all he did. In my last discussions with Chris, I felt proud to have known him and shared both the extraordinary experience that brought us together, born of an era few people today can conceive of—a great mountain scaled together, but also the values Chris brought to the job and to all the people with whom he worked. —Nicholas Ludlow In the 1970s, the National Council for US-China Trade—as the organization was then known—was an interesting clash of cultures. Not between the Chinese and the Americans, but rather between the bulk of the staff—twenty-somethings, fresh out of school, excited about the opening of China, and eager to use our boundless energy to change the world—and the adults who ran the organization and supervised us in our work. Those were heady days. America was ablaze with China fever and the Council's phone rang off the hook nearly every day. China was cautiously opening its doors and business wanted to get in on the ground floor. In the absence of formal diplomatic relations between the governments, the Council was the best—and, in the early days, the only—way in. Chris Phillips had been a driving force behind the creation of the Council, and it was no accident he had been asked to run it. Although not a "China hand" by training, he had had half a lifetime of experience in the worlds of diplomacy, business, and government by the time we met him. He knew his way around Washington and how decisions were made, and he knew how organizations like our fledgling group ought to operate to be effective. We young turks, of course, knew none of those things. And in Chris Phillips we found someone who would train us patiently to become professionals. He taught us the finer points of getting things done—in Washington, in corporate executive suites, and in foreign embassies—with a minimum of collateral damage. He explained how national policy was developed and demonstrated his skills in influencing the process. And, a gentleman of the old school, he instructed us in the rhythms of business meetings and negotiations, his instinctive grasp of protocol standing him in good stead with our Chinese counterparts. We like to think that a little bit of his polish may have rubbed off on us and on those with whom we worked in those early days. He also helped us develop in another, important way: He promoted us. The Council was in growth mode, and this often meant that opportunities presented themselves for which we were, objectively speaking, not yet fully qualified. But stretching us by offering us those positions was a real vote of confidence, and we never wanted to disappoint him. Because of him and his confidence in us, we grew up just a bit more quickly. Chris Phillips deserves many accolades, and his lengthy résumé speaks for itself—from service on General Douglas MacArthur's staff in Tokyo after World War II and election as the then-youngest Massachusetts state senator to his time as deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, and, ultimately, US ambassador to Brunei. He led the Council during a historic period in US-China relations, from the earliest days of China's opening to the West via the semi-annual Canton Trade Fair, through Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's historic trip to the United States, and his first overtures seeking foreign direct investment to the bustling early 1980s, when imports, exports, and the first investments in oil exploration and hotels started to take off. But what the long string of job titles and accolades leaves out is the essential kindness of the man, his gifts as a teacher and his willingness to be a mentor to his charges and help them grow and develop. Others may laud Chris Phillips for planting the seeds of a bilateral economic relationship that no one at the time could have imagined would have burgeoned to its current levels. But for us, he was first and foremost a father figure, a coach, and a mentor. —Scott Seligman and Carolyn Brehm
Copyright 2008 US-China Business Council |
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
The first US commercial delegation to China after 1949 traveled to Beijing in 1973. (Phillips center, back)