Date: Thursday, October 19, 2006

Resource: Daily Herald

Daily Herald
HUNTSMAN'S CHINA TRADE MISSION: UVSC's Val Hale is in China this week as part of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s trade mission to bring together the businesses of the world's most populous country and the Beehive State. His dispatches will run daily.

BEIJING -- Wednesday was play day for most of the participants in the trade mission to China. Delegates headed out to visit the Great Wall of China or the Forbidden City, or they just went searching for great deals in one of this city's many shopping districts.

There were a few meetings interspersed between the sight seeing activities, however. A small group met with Madame Zhang Xiuqin, secretary-general of the China Scholarship Council, to discuss possible partnerships between China and Utah's higher education community. There are currently 126,000 Chinese attending college outside their county, including about 80 at BYU and eight at UVSC. Some eight million Chinese youth graduated from high school in 2006.

UVSC has been trying to attract more Chinese students, but most of those interested in going to the Orem school have had trouble obtaining student visas. The visa issue was discussed at the meeting, and several Utah delegation members, including Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis, spoke on behalf of UVSC, encouraging the Chinese leaders to send more students to the school.

While I was telling the secretary-general about UVSC, I mentioned that if Speaker Curtis and his colleagues in the Utah legislature would cooperate, the school would be a university soon. That drew a laugh from the Utahns in the room. I hadn't flown halfway around the world to miss out on an opportunity to lobby the Speaker of the House for university status.

The education meeting was set up primarily due to the efforts of XanGo's Bryan Davis and Manny Menendez. Originally, Governor Jon Huntman was supposed to be in attendance, but he had flown to Shanghai to deliver a speech and was unable to return in time. Speaker Curtis filled in admirably for the Governor, extolling the virtues of Utah's institutions of higher education.

Two additional meetings were held during the day. One involved travel and tourism to Utah, and the other focused on the nutraceutical industry, which was of particular interest to Utah County's strong health and dietary supplement companies that are pushing to enter China.

Nu Skin recently received a permit from the Chinese government allowing the company to participate in direct sales inside in China. It took four years to receive approval for the license. Tahitian Noni has a general manager of Chinese operations based in Shanghai. Both XanGo and Nature's Sunshine are trying to complete the steps necessary to receive their direct-selling license. All of these Utah County-based companies see China as fertile soil to make their companies grow.

During the afternoon, I hooked up with UVSC student Peter Walters, who works as a freelance writer in Beijing while finishing his integrated studies degree via distance education. He took me to the Forbidden City, home of China's emperors for more than 500 years. It is difficult to describe the size and majesty of the palaces inside the towering city walls. We walked for nearly two hours and didn't begin to scratch the surface of everything to see inside the ancient city.

Following our history lesson, we decided for a more contemporary experience--shopping in the Silk Market, where bargain hunters can buy knockoffs of just about any product imaginable. People pack the place to barter for "name brand" items ranging from coats to golf clubs to jewelry. Half the fun is negotiating with the sellers to see how low they will go on a price.

Tomorrow a portion of the delegation heads to Shanghai to meet with that city's mayor. Some participants have already headed home or will be leaving tomorrow. The remainder of the group will be leaving Saturday.