From June 3-11, 2008, the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) sponsored a five-person delegation to the People’s Republic of China. The group, led by General Peter Pace (USMC, ret.), former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Armed Forces, included AFPC’s John Wobensmith and Ilan Berman, Paul Behrends, a principal at the law firm of Cromwell and Mooring, and Raymond Kellish, President and CEO of Blue Water Irrigation, Inc. During their eight day visit, delegation members held high-level meetings on military and strategic affairs with Party officials in Beijing, and visited China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

The delegation visit found China in a state of national mourning and mobilization in the wake of the mid-May earthquake in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. According to statistics provided to the delegation by Chinese officials, some four million households require reconstruction aid as a result of the disaster, and approximately 15 million people will need to be resettled. While Taiwan remains perhaps the cardinal concern of Chinese foreign policy, the delegation’s visit found Beijing officials adopting a more relaxed attitude toward the issue. Much of this shift can be attributed to the January 2008 legislative elections in Taiwan, which ousted anti-mainland President Chen Shui-bian and his Democratic Progressive Party in favor of the pro-unification Koumingtang (KMT) and its presidential nominee, Ma Ying-jeou. Significant overtures toward the mainland on the part of Taiwanese officials since then appear to have considerably allayed PRC fears of imminent political tension with the island.

The delegation’s visit to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region provided members with unique insight into the scope of China’s terrorism challenge, a topic of considerable concern for the PRC as it prepared to host the August 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Foremost on the minds of Chinese officials, however, was the delegation’s views about the prospective candidates in the U.S. presidential race. The Chinese leadership is keenly interested in the political process underway in the United States, and searching for answers regarding the presidential candidates attitudes toward the PRC as it prepares to ease the transition to what is bound to be a new Sino-American relationship.