By Norm Jacknis

9/14/98 11:00 PM Beijing

On Saturday, September 12, we had a final breakfast session with Mr. Liu, Jingzhou's leader, as well as others from the Jingzhou City government.

But most of the day was devoted just to getting to Beijing. At 7:30 AM, we got on the bus to the airport serving the provincial capital, Wuhan. As we left town, we were greeted by a large parade. For a brief moment, we thought it was a going away event. It was, but not for us -- it was for the soldiers who helped with the recent floods.

The bus trip to Wuhan Airport was more than three hours, but it gave Mr. Wang from Jingzhou and the County Executive the opportunity to have a frank and substantive review of Westchester County's interaction with its sister city. Often times, such informal opportunities lead to the most concrete results.

We finally arrived at our hotel in Beijing in late afternoon. To our surprise, we found Beijing to be the most modern city in China. With its tall skyscrapers,  traffic congestion, large and varied population and its pace, it was like New York City.

Beijing, like Shanghai, has so much construction that it too generates a tidy revenue for the makers of cranes.

Sunday, September 13, was the first day that we had no travel or lengthy business meetings -- since we started a week ago Friday. The day was devoted to seeing some of the cultural and historic sites in the area, including the Great Wall.

Unfortunately, this day was rainy and the fog reduced visibility to less than 100 feet.

	We also noticed what seemed to be a common practice of surrounding historical sites with souvenir shops.

Today, Monday, September 14, it was back to business. The morning meeting was at the China Chamber of International Commerce/China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).  We met with Mr. Wang Jinzhen, Director General; Mr. Zhao Zhenger, Deputy Director and head of the American Affairs Division; and Mr. Chen Baiping, Desk Officer.This was an important meeting, as the CCPIT is the main office which is aware of all the business opportunities in China.

The afternoon meeting was with the China Centre of Adoption Affairs on behalf of Westchester Family Services (WFS). The County Executive, Brenda Resnick Spano (the County's child care advocate), attorney Marc Oxman and I met with Mr. Zhang Zhong, Deputy Director-General, and Ms. Chu Xiaoying, Deputy Director of the Review Department.

This is the central government office that reviews and approves all applications for agencies wishing to provide adoptions of Chinese babies. We were there to help WFS attain this status so that it could directly set up adoptions of the babies we saw at the Jingzhou Orphanage.

We were informed that the office had a limit on the number of agencies it dealt with and had not approved any new applications in the last two years. After the County Executive and Mrs. Spano went over the application in more detail and presented additional information about Westchester, the deputy director indicated that the application papers would be accepted and that he felt WFS was qualified. He asked only that we give the office a bit more time to work the application through their processes, but he said "it will happen in the future." He added that the fact that the County Executive took time from his schedule to visit with them on this matter very much impressed him.

The staff indicated that WFS was very much the kind of agency they preferred to deal with -- a non-profit, with a strong relationship to the County government and an umbrella role with respect to other agencies.

As County Executive Spano and Mr. Zhang discussed the process more, it became clear that a major concern of the office was that they had a number of approved agencies which were not doing a good job. Thus, the County Executive and Mr. Zhang worked out a plan whereby the county and WFS  would help them set up a system to evaluate those agencies. Mr. Spano offered our assistance to gather additional information about the agencies from the Internet and from Federal and state sources.

Mr. Zhang was especially intrigued by the County Executive's offer to help them use videoconferencing and Internet technology to oversee the adoption agencies and to interview the management of the agencies. By the end of the meeting, the staff indicated that they were happy to see us and felt it was a very good and useful meeting. Privately, they told the official from Jingzhou (who accompanied us) that they were very moved by the meeting.

At night, we had another dinner meeting.  This was hosted by Pfizer Corporation's China subsidiary and its President/General Manager John S. Lee. We discussed Pfizer's experience in doing business in China and their suggestions for us as we try to open up business opportunities for Westchester companies.