US-China Business Council celebrates 50th anniversary

WASHINGTON -- The US-China Business Council (USCBC) celebrated its 50th anniversary Thursday evening, reflecting on the past 50 years of the US-China commercial relationship while looking forward to the next half-century.

Craig Allen, president of the USCBC, looked back at the council's history at a gala dinner. "To this day, the mission of USCBC remains unchanged. Our mission is to advocate for American companies doing business in China, to expand the overall bilateral US-China commercial relationship," Allen told an audience of over 500 leaders from the US business, political, diplomatic, and academic communities.

In a congratulatory message to the USCBC's Jubilee Gala, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the world is undergoing major transformation unseen in a century. Whether China and the United States can work hand in hand to tackle the challenges together concerns the interests of the two peoples and the future of humanity, Xi said.

The past 50 years have witnessed the two countries' persistent and joint pursuit of partnership and mutual benefit despite the twists and turns, Xi said, expressing hope that the USCBC and its member companies will build more bridges for friendly exchanges between the two countries, cultivate more bonds for practical cooperation, and help write a new chapter of win-win cooperation in the next 50 years.

On the same day, US President Joe Biden also sent a congratulatory message to the USCBC event, appreciating the USCBC's five decades of effort in supporting commercial relations between the two countries.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng, and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attended the gala dinner and delivered speeches.

"The most heartwarming development recently is the successful summit meeting between President Xi and President Biden in San Francisco. It has added stability to China-US relations at a critical moment, and injected positive energy into a turbulent and transforming world," Xie said.

Xie said that it is important to honor commitments, and implement the common understandings reached at the San Francisco summit, to keep business cooperation from being politicized, to complement each other, and to expand the list of mutually beneficial cooperation.

Allen, in his remarks, said that "history teaches us that economics underpins global geopolitical stability and that attempts to undermine economic interdependence can lead to greater global geopolitical instability."

Founded in 1973 and headquartered in Washington, DC, the USCBC is a non-governmental trade organization established by the US side before the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It has long been committed to promoting the development of China-US relations and bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

The council now represents more than 200 American companies that do business with China.