Harvard Business School Alumni

Chinese Premier Speaks at HBS

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Photo by Stephanie Mitchell

Amid the backdrop of U.S.-Chinese relations — tension over trade issues and Taiwan’s independence on the one hand, cooperation on terrorism and North Korea on the other — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spoke at HBS during a four-day trip to the United States in December. Business was one of several issues touched on by the 61-year-old veteran Communist Party technocrat, an engineer and geologist by training. The second-highest official in China’s hierarchy, Wen is charged with economic oversight of the past decade’s fastest-growing economy.

Speaking through a translator, Wen stated that its “large population and underdevelopment are the two facts China has to face.” He portrayed his country not as an imminent international juggernaut but as a domestic work in progress. Stressing that “it is not proper for China to rely on other countries for development,” he said that it might take dozens of generations before China achieves true development. By 2049, the 100th anniversary of China’s revolution, Wen would only predict that “we will have reached the level of a medium-developed society.”

Responding to a questioner after his prepared remarks, Wen said the solution to the U.S.-China trade deficit lay in an expansion of U.S. exports, rather than restrictions on the Chinese side. He noted that in recent years, U.S. exports to China have increased by a greater percentage than U.S. exports to the rest of the world. Wen said he has suggested to President George W. Bush (MBA ’75) that a high-level joint commission be formed to defuse business problems between the two countries. “We should not turn economic or trade issues into political ones,” he declared.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson, Wen said that economic development must precede democracy. While China is not yet ready, he said, for national elections (although 680,000 villages have elected local officials), the country’s goal is that “the people supervise the work of the government.” China is committed to improvements in human rights, he observed, adding that individual freedoms and economic development are linked. He also declared that respect for private property rights is now a fact in both “law and practice.” China, Wen concluded, is “a country in reform and opening up and a rising power dedicated to peace.”