From the New York Times (link)
Chinese leaders, eager to improve relations with the United States ahead of the first ever visit there by President Hu Jintao later this month, have dispatched a large delegation of businessmen and economic officials both to display China’s buying power and to cool protectionist sentiment in Congress, officials said today.
The buying mission, the largest China has assembled since reestablishing diplomatic relations with the United States in late 1979, reflects Beijing’s view that it may be easier for it to try to lower economic tensions than to satisfy some other American demands, such as doing more to help curtail nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and reducing human rights abuses at home.
More than 100 business executives joined Wu Yi, China’s vice premier and economic trouble-shooter, on an American tour that began Tuesday in Hawaii and is scheduled to cover 13 states. The trip is expected to result in multibillion-dollar orders for Boeing aircraft, auto parts, computer software, telecommunications equipment, grain, cotton and soybeans and other products, officials and state media reports said.
