Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

James Green: Welcome to the U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast from Georgetown University.

This podcast series explores diplomacy and dialogue between China and the United States during the four decades since normalization of relations in 1979.We'll hear from former ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, and White House advisors -- who will share how they shaped the course of the most complex relationship in international diplomacy today.

I'm your host, James Green. Today on the podcast, we talk with Ambassador Gary Locke.

Throughout much of his career, Gary Locke has broken a lot of glass ceilings: first Chinese-American governor of a U.S. state, first Chinese-American Secretary of Commerce, and first Chinese-American ambassador to China.

During his inaugural trade mission as Governor of Washington State to his family's ancestral village in southern China in 1997, Locke and his extended family were treated as rock stars. At the time, Chinese people and leaders were understandably proud of the accomplishments of the Locke clan in America. But a decade and a half later, as Locke prepared to leave his post as U.S. Ambassador, some officials in Beijing had become disillusioned with an ambassador that was much more American than Chinese.

One of the incidents that the Chinese leadership was not pleased about was the public spat over the handling of a Chinese blind legal activist named Chen Guangcheng. In May 2012, Chen escaped house arrest in his home village and made his way to Beijing just as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to arrive for an annual bilateral meeting. Here's her recounting of that event, a few years after the incident:

Secretary Hillary Clinton (audio clip): I get called late one night about Chen who has escaped from house arrest, quite remarkably because he is blind, has broken his foot in the escape, had been picked up and was seeking asylum in our embassy in Beijing and was on his way there.

James Green: Eventually, Chen was permitted to travel to the United States, but Ambassador Locke's public involvement in the high-profile dissident case tarnished his image for some in the Beijing. In his conversation with me, Locke talks about his family history, about trade negotiations, and about practical improvements he made as U.S. ambassador which benefited the peoples of both countries, including the pollution metric he's famous for throughout China.

Ambassador Gary Locke, thanks so much for taking time. So great to see you. You look refreshed and wonderful after your time leaving the embassy in Beijing. Before getting to your time in the Obama administration, I just wanted to start with your experience growing up in Washington State in a Chinese-American household. Your father was a domestic worker, you guys spoke some Cantonese at home. Can you just describe what your childhood was like here?

Gary Locke: Well, actually it's great to be back in the state of Washington. We oftentimes call this the real Washington. The air is clean, the environment is just terrific. So many outdoor things to do and it's a cosmopolitan city, but also a small-town city and so it's easy to do things here in the Seattle area. It's a great place to live, work and to raise a family. Growing up, I really didn't know that much about China. My father was born in China, but it was actually my grandfather who came over near the turn of the 20th century in the late 1800s, to work as a servant for a family in the state capital, washing dishes, sweeping floors, and doing the laundry in exchange for English lessons. And then he eventually moved up to Seattle and worked at a hospital as a chef, but he after leaving Olympia, the state capital, he went back to China, got married.

And so that's where my father was born. But then grandfather came back to the United States to continue to work, sending money back to the family village to support the family. And eventually the head of the hospital, the founder of the hospital, encouraged my grandfather to go back to southern China, Guangdong Province, the Toisan or Taishan area, and to bring the family over. So, my dad came over, along with some aunts and uncles, when my dad was about twelve or thirteen years old, learned English here, joined the United States army before the outbreak of World War II. Served in the Fifth Armored Division, was part of the Normandy invasion. And then the march to Berlin under General Patton.

James Green: I know for some Japanese-Americans, they were not allowed to serve in the Pacific. For Chinese-Americans, was there any prohibition on serving the Pacific or he just happened to be sent to Europe because his unit went to Europe?

Gary Locke: No, he happened to be sent to Europe. He was in the Fifth Armored Division and so that's where they went. And he was involved in some of the most vicious battles in the race to Berlin to try to beat the Russians to Berlin. And then after the war was over, he went back to Hong Kong, met my mom, they got married and came right back. And so all of us were born here in Seattle. But my only recollection of our Chinese culture and heritage was obviously speaking Chinese.

I didn't learn English until I went to kindergarten. Spoke a very rural dialect, a little bit of Cantonese, but really a rural dialect that is almost foreign to most other people in China. But we had a lot of relatives coming over and dad and mom were always putting them up in the house and helping them get situated, for months at a time until they got settled on their own, always sending money back to the family village.

And I never understood that until finally after I was governor, our whole family at the end of a trade mission went back to the family village. And my mom and dad had not been back to China since their wedding, fifty years—exactly fifty years—before.

James Green: Wow.

Gary Locke: And it was very nostalgic and very emotional for them to go back to the village. But for all of us to really understand that all of our success here in America, including mine, including my political success, was really made possible by the contributions and the sacrifices of everyone in the village who chipped in their money to support people and help people make the voyage to the United States. And so, I understood now why dad and mom were always sending money back to the village to support the village.

James Green: I wanna talk about your time as governor, but since you brought up your trip to China, I'm just curious if you could kind of set the stage of what it was like. It must've been, as you said, quite emotional to go with your extended family back to the ancestral village. How were you received and what had they set up for you there?

Gary Locke: I was elected in 1996. Sworn in in 1997 and at the end of that first year, in the fall, October of 1997, I had a trade mission to Japan and to China. And my brothers and sisters and mom and dad met me in China on those last few days of our trade mission. And then when they trade mission was officially over, we departed from Hong Kong, took the hydrofoil up the Pearl River, to the Toisan area of Guangdong Province, which is basically halfway between Hong Kong and Guangzhou, a huge cosmopolitan city. And we were just mobbed when we arrived. There was almost like a ticker tape parade through part of the big city of millions of people.

And then suddenly we arrived almost at the edge of the city. Suddenly there's farmland and rice patties. and there were kids greeting us the entire length of the roadway, waving pompoms. They'd been out there for hours in the sweltering heat. I felt really bad for them. But it was about a mile-long road to the family village. Once we got to the village, it was like stepping back into the 1800s. The house where grandfather and great grandfather where born, where my dad was born.

James Green: So, the house is still-

Gary Locke: Oh yeah, the house was still there, and it was occupied, lived in by my dad's uncle.

James Green: It’s still in the family?

Gary Locke: Still in the family. And in honor of our occasion, they put in a toilet. But the toilet basically emptied out into the sidewalk, so nobody really used that toilet. In honor of our visit they brought in a pipe of cold water, but they cook using wood kindling and coal briquettes. In the back of the house, there's maybe a light bulb, one light bulb hanging from each ceiling. Refrigerators the size of what you would see in a college dorm or maybe in a hotel room, which is why there's so much spoilage of food in China.

I mean, where would China get all the electricity it would need, for 40% of the population who live in the countryside, like our family village. Where would they get the electricity for electric stoves and dishwasher or even a washing machine? Because they wash everything by hand. Which is why China has such enormous needs. But anyway, it was a very emotional trip. During the rest of the trip, through Beijing and Shanghai and other parts of China as part of the trade mission, we were just mobbed. We were just mobbed everywhere we went.

James Green: And you were the first Chinese-American governor of a U.S. state. And so how do you think both the Chinese leadership but also the laobaixing, the average Chinese people, saw you and why were you being mobbed, do you think? And how were you perceived?

Gary Locke: We were mobbed because of the pride of the Chinese people that a Chinese-American could be elected to such a high office in America. The first Asian-American elected governor anywhere on the mainland, obviously Hawaii with a huge Asian population has had Asian-American governors, and clearly the first Chinese-American governor in U.S. history in any state.

So, it was a source of pride. I understand that the family village had a celebration as soon as they received the news that I had been elected. People even had some campaign t-shirts; I don't know where they got those campaign tee-shirts. But it was viewed as a source of pride and because America has always been held up as that land of opportunity, of freedom and hope. My election was vindication that the Chinese could succeed in America. And it really represented the culmination of the journey of generations after generations of Chinese who have come to America in pursuit of that American dream.

James Green: That was a time before China had joined the World Trade Organization. And so, there was still this positive momentum that China's trade barriers are gonna come down and that would help U.S. exports and services and ranchers and farmers.

Gary Locke: Yes, this was well before the legislation giving China permanent normal trading status as well as prior to the vote in the Congress allowing China to join the WTO.

James Green: On the WTO, you were governor I think when the minister was here in ‘97, is that right? When there were protests here. I wonder if you could reflect a little bit, this isn't specifically on China, but China's entrance of the WTO and whether or not the WTO is a good enough mechanism to regulate international trade it all kind of wraps together in some way. That was an anti-globalization backlash. Could you talk a little bit about that time for folks who kind of don't remember that? That back then there were people who didn't think the WTO was the sort of organization that should be promoted in a ministerial here in Seattle.

Gary Locke: Well, right. There was a WTO ministerial here in Seattle. And unfortunately, it was hijacked by a bunch of anarchists from other parts of the states that came here, that barricaded the convention center where the ministerial was being held, riots in the streets and unfortunately the anarchists were destroying windows of nearby shops and things like that. Obviously, there were concerns about China's entrance to the WTO, but more importantly, it was a protest by organized labor and clergy and other interest groups about globalization in general. But unfortunately, the anarchists somehow captivated this sentiment and gave a really bad impression and I think hurt the reputation of those who are legitimately concerned about globalization.

And so, there was in fact, at the time that the anarchists were occupying the downtown streets and barricading the convention center and not allowing the ministerial to actually open, there was a march of organized labor, clergy, and others concerned about globalization proceeding toward the downtown area. And, we tried to have them change their routes so that the two forces would not come together because obviously one group was very peace loving and very law abiding had legitimate concerns they wanted to express.

But we were concerned that if they cut close to the anarchists, then the police and the authorities would not know, could not differentiate between the two groups and unfortunately we were concerned that arrests would be made of wrong individuals of innocent bystanders and people who were peacefully expressing their views.

James Green: Or someone might get hurt, right. Looking back twenty years, were the protesters, not the anarchists, but were the protesters right about the dangers of globalization?

Gary Locke: Yes and no. Obviously, globalization is a fact. It's a reality. It cannot be changed. I think the dangers, or the shortcomings of globalization is that policymakers have not done enough to address the disruption that globalization causes within communities or among the affected workers in terms of really focusing on job training and retraining and educational skills. Or even helping companies that are here in the United States export more and be able to take advantage of the opening markets around the world. 95% of the world's consumers live outside the United States. If we want American companies to grow and expand and hire more people, we need to help those American companies sell their great Made In USA products and services to more people around the world.

Earlier I talked about the really tough conditions of our family village in China. That's how 40% of the people of China live. 40% of the people of China live in similar villages to our family village, with very little sanitation, or modern appliances, electricity, no washing machines, no electric stoves, cooking using wood kindling, using an outhouse a hundred yards away, having maybe just a pipe of cold water coming into the house.

China has enormous needs and American products and services can really help provide a higher standard of living for the people of China, from technology, to medical care, to environmental cleanup. And the list goes on and on. So, I think that globalization will occur, but we need to do a better job at helping companies and especially workers and communities adjust to that.

James Green: On the issue of trade, I think Washington State on a GDP basis, trades more than any other state in the United States in terms of exports? It has more exports.

Gary Locke: Washington State is the most trade dependent state in America, with one out of almost every three jobs depending, directly and indirectly, on trade, whether imports and exports. As well as the jobs that are supported by those who are engaged directly in trade. And certainly, we export more than any other state, period.

James Green: Before moving to your time in the Obama administration, I just wanted to end your time in governor when you hosted a number of Chinese visitors that would come, and I'm sure they were all wanting to try to get meetings with you when they came through. But the one I wanted to ask you about was when Hu Jintao came in 2006, he was the President and the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Can you talk from what you remember about that trip and how that went?

Gary Locke: When President Hu Jintao of China came to the United States in 2006, I was no longer governor, but I was actually asked by the Chinese government to help lead the effort surrounding his stopover in Seattle on his way to Washington, D.C.

And so, I chaired the planning committee and we had representatives from business and cultural and citizen and civic groups involved. And it was a great, great event. We really wanted to make sure that he could get a flavor of what American life was like as opposed to-

James Green: Outside of Washington DC.

Gary Locke: Yeah, the real America, as I mentioned earlier. But also get a glimpse of the American people and to have him interact with American citizens because once he gets to D.C., these are all formal government meetings. And so, we really wanted to give him a glimpse of American life and what I say is the better Washington, and to also let the American people see him.

And so originally it was planned in 2005 in the fall of 2005 around Labor Day. And we thought, wow, it'd be great to have him stop by and see an American Labor Day picnic and experience a hot dog and potato salad and everything else. But the trip was canceled at the very last minute, just as he was about to board an airplane, because of Hurricane Katrina. And President Bush at the time indicated that he was just too preoccupied in his administration, was too concerned and preoccupied with Hurricane Katrina than to have an official state visit for the President of China.

So, it was postponed until the spring of 2006. But we were able to do that. And, it was a great, great time. It was a great time and I think he enjoyed himself meeting Boeing workers and visiting schools, seeing some school children who were learning Chinese, visiting Microsoft campus, and having a huge official banquet in which we had even Henry Kissinger and many distinguished current and past government officials attending.

James Green: So, when you join the Commerce Department in 2009 it was in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Could you just paint a picture of first how you ended up in the Commerce Department and kind of connected with the Obama administration? But then also, what it was like your first day in the Hoover Building thinking, oh my gosh, the U.S. economy is going off a cliff, what can we do to address that?

Gary Locke: Well, I never thought that I would be joining the Obama administration because earlier on, I was one of the Washington State co-chairs for Hillary Clinton. But I had made it very clear to then-Senator Obama that were he to secure the nomination, to secure all the delegate votes, once it was clear that he did that, he could count on my full support. And so, after he got the nomination even before the convention, I was out there campaigning for him once it was very clear that he had beaten Hillary Clinton. So, I never expected a phone call from him, to even interview for a position in his Cabinet. But it was quite the honor to receive that call and to serve in the Commerce Department. I think he chose me for that position given my experience on trade, as a governor, as well as being a manager.

There were many other parts of the Commerce Department that had initiatives underway that were very difficult, very complex, and in some ways in trouble. Whether it's at that time, the 2010 census, which was projected by all the different government watchdog agencies as a very troubled to a project, to implementing stimulus programs, for multibillion-dollar grants for high speed Internet access to communities, urban and rural, to fisheries issues. And of course, trying to reform and speed up the patent process, which was woefully backlogged.

James Green: And the Patent and Trademark office as part of Department of Commerce.

Gary Locke: There’re so many functions of the Commerce Department. And of course just trying to help businesses get back on their feet, whether it was grants, economic development grants to help, for instance, a community improve their port system or helping a town double the size of their water treatment facilities so that an existing company could grow or so that it could handle the business and the water needs of a new company that was planning on locating.

Sometimes it was taking us twenty months to give out these grants, anywhere from five to fifteen million dollars. And we said, my gosh, twenty months to allocate money that could help create jobs this is unacceptable. So, we were able to streamline that process down to seventeen days. In terms of commerce, actual commerce, we had a motto at the department: the more that American companies export, the more they produce. The more they produce, the more workers they need. And that means jobs, jobs for the American people. So, one of our major projects was to open doors, around the world for American companies to help them find customers and buyers for their great Made In USA products and services.

James Green: One of the mechanisms that the United States and China set up to address exports and trade barriers was the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. And at the time that you were the Secretary of Commerce, that must have been about twenty-plus years into it. Could you just describe as a Cabinet secretary who was one of the co-leads on the U.S. side, set the table for us; what does it look like? How did you see your role in that and promote U.S. market access and U.S. products and services?

Gary Locke: Well, these are annual meetings that are held between high-level U.S. and Chinese government officials. And each year the venue rotates, alternates between China and the United States. They are basically the culmination of months of discussions, negotiations by lower-level government officials, representing so many different agencies from the Commerce Department, Agriculture, U.S. Trade Representative, Energy Department, and so many others.

And really trying to remove some of the barriers and the regulatory barriers, the policy issues separating our two countries that inhibit trade, whether it's how long it takes to get a visa, the length of the validity of the visa, to what's stopping or hindering exports of agricultural commodities from United States to China, or the purchase by China of high-tech goods, to China wanting to sell certain items into the United States.

And so, trying to figure out how to remove those regulatory barriers, or even what legislation might be necessary to enable greater trade to occur. Those were the topics of these discussions. And then they would culminate in these high-level meetings of about two or three days. And hopefully we would be able to reach an agreement on them. In some ways they were very frustrating as well, because oftentimes when you got to the final meetings, each side would be basically reading to each other position papers-

James Green: Could just describe what the meeting room looks like for people who haven't seen it or experienced it?

Gary Locke: It's a huge long table in which the Americans are seated on one side and the Chinese are on the other side. And then behind each of the sides are all their staffs, with information and papers and greater details. And we have all these topics that are set out in advance and the speakers, designated in advance but in many ways, we're just stating our positions to the other side our demands, our ask, our responses to the other side. And we're just basically reading to each other and not really engaging in true dialogue or negotiation. And that was very frustrating, clearly to both sides. And so oftentimes we would have to meet on the side or something to really try to see if we could crack the nut and to really make some real progress.

James Green: So at the negotiating table, fifty plus a side, maybe with another fifty in the back bench, but then to actually get them all moving, you'd have a sidebar or you'd have a pull aside before lunch or after lunch at some of the break and say, what can we do for biotech approvals? Or what can we do to really get soybeans in the market? Or whatever the issue was.

Gary Locke: That's exactly right. Because a lot of the discussions on let's say soybeans or let's say on opening up China to beef exports from America, there would be agreements made or steps made advancing the issue. Sometimes agreements were made, but sometimes we'd hit a roadblock and despite the discussions by our lower-level counterparts in the various agencies, we just couldn't get very far. And at these JCCT formal meetings, the United States would present its position, its ask, its demand, and the Chinese would simply state their position. And so, it was really more of a formality in terms of where we are as opposed to really trying to get the ball across the goal line.

James Green: Very orchestrated like a Peking opera almost. You do your part. I do my part-

Gary Locke: Yeah, yeah.

James Green: And then we break for lunch. So, when you were ambassador and you would go off to Jiangsu or pick your province, I'm curious, the Party secretary or the vice governor of the province meeting a Chinese-American ambassador who didn't speak Chinese, how did they react or how did that conversation go for a lot of times?

Gary Locke: Well, I remember a meeting with one very prominent Party secretary of a province. And in China you have both the governor of the province and the Party secretary, the Communist government official. The Communist government official is a higher-ranking person than the governor. And then in the Chinese system they oftentimes switch. So, you might actually be a Party secretary of a big city in China. And then your next assignment is to be the governor of the province. And then your next assignment after that might be to be the Party secretary of another province. And unlike the United States where government officials basically come from the community. I mean, I'm elected governor of the state of Washington. That's because I'm a resident of the state of Washington. The mayor of Denver is a longtime resident of Denver. In China, these top government officials are almost like military commanders. They're basically assigned to a post or a base and they go from one base or one post to another. Mayor one day, Party secretary of a totally different city the next day and-

James Green: Vice minister after that.

Gary Locke: You're assigned all these different positions. I remember meeting one prominent Party secretary of a major province. I met him for the first time as ambassador and all of his top subordinates and assistants were just so over the top and thrilled to be meeting me. And we overheard him saying and reminding his colleagues that, "Now remember, just because he's Chinese doesn't mean he's one of us."

And I mentioned that earlier that there was a lot of expectation on me, and perhaps unrealistic expectations on me by the Chinese people because of my Chinese ancestry. They really felt that I would be taking the position of China in the U.S.-China relationship. And I think it was good or certainly I think the fact that I did not speak Mandarin, I knew a little bit of Cantonese and Toisanese from growing up. But the fact that I did not speak the official language of Mandarin, which is very different from Cantonese by the way, the fact that I did not speak Mandarin reinforced in the minds of the Chinese government officials and the Chinese people that I am really a representative of America, that I represent the American people, the American government and President Obama.

James Green: It's a very good way to put it. For your time at the embassy, there's kind of three things that I think you're known for. One was the reduction in visa wait times. One was the highlighting of the air quality and PM 2.5, which you made a ubiquitous term that every Chinese person now knows. And then there was the release of the blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng. I wonder if we could just go through some of those and what you see as accomplishments or challenges from your time, maybe starting with the visa wait times and why you focused on that and you felt like that was an important thing to work on.

Gary Locke: Well, I've actually been very concerned about Visas for the Chinese to the United States for quite some time. And I remember even shortly after the September 11th attack against the United States how then-Harvard President Larry Summers was concerned about it and wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell saying that the difficulty of foreign students to get visas and was actually hurting the interest of America. That by encouraging more and making it possible for more foreign students to come to the United States to study, that they could then see our democracy and our diversity and the hopes and dreams of America and understand our political system that so that hopefully when they went back to their home countries, we will have created in them this appetite for more openness and democracy and liberalization that they could then, as future leaders of their own countries from around the world, help spread, and hasten.

And then as governor, I used to hear of the times in which our companies in Washington would invite a Chinese business person to come visit their facility, their factory to possibly buy that Made In Washington state product and how that Chinese person could not get a visa. And then as Commerce Secretary, I heard it again; how long it took for the Chinese individual to wait for a visa interview. Visitors from most countries around the world have to have a visa to come to the United States. But in order to get that visa, you have to have an in-person interview and people sometimes have to travel thousands of miles depending on the country in which they live, to the consulate or embassy for that short interview with no guarantee that you'll get the visa. And we were hearing that it was taking up to a hundred days for a Chinese business person or tourists to get a visa interview to come the United States.

And we were saying in the Commerce Department, my gosh, if I'm a Chinese business person and I'm told that to get a visa to go to that Ohio factory to look at that American product, I have to wait a hundred days before I can get my interview with no guarantee I get the interview, why should I go to Ohio then? I can go get a visa faster to go to Australia or France or Canada. I don't have to buy that American widget. I can buy from some other company in another country. And so, we in the Commerce Department will saying, "My gosh, that's costing us American jobs." Again, the more that American companies export to another country, the more they produce, the more they produce, the more workers they need. And that means jobs, good paying jobs for the American people.

So, when I got to Beijing, I said, “hey, we've gotta fix this. We really have to fix this.” And my folks told me, well, unless there's more money for overtime or unless we hire more visa interview personnel, and if we have more personnel, we've got to have more interview windows. And those cost a lot of money to build these high-tech soundproof interview bays. And I said, "My gosh, we're never gonna get this money. I mean, we're in a recession. We're not gonna get the money from the State Department." And even if the State Department says yes, the President's budget office can say no. And even if the President says yes, the Congress will probably say no, and it'll take years and years and years. This is unacceptable. Well, we got it down to five days within a month and a half, and a few months later we got it down to three days. Just by process improvements and reexamining how we do things. People still have to take the interviews, we don't shortchange or shortcut the length of the interview, but we're just more efficient in how we do the scheduling.

And then shortly after I arrived, I said, "Wait, why do we only have one-year visas for each side?" The Americans if they want to go to China, your visa is only good for a year, then you gotta reapply for a visa and the same thing with the Chinese. It's inefficient. Why don't we have multi-year visas? And so, I approached the Chinese government on said, hey, we ought to get together and have five-year visas. And ultimately just as I left, we reached an agreement in which each side will have ten-year Visas. And President Obama was able to announce that after I left, but on his visit to China to great fanfare. I mean it makes sense. It's more predictable for both Chinese business people and Chinese tourists, American business people and American tourists. And it saves the government money. You don't have to process these visas every single year.

James Green: PM 2.5. I know for a lot of the embassy staff, they really look to your efforts and- and Dan Kritenbrink, who's now our ambassador to Vietnam, his efforts to highlight the issue of air quality and the challenges of staff working in Beijing. But also, it ended up having a much wider effect and Chinese society in which and Chinese government circles because the embassy had an air monitor that was putting out numbers every hour. It was clear to everyone what the numbers actually were. Could you just talk a little bit about that entire episode? But also, I seem to recall some Chinese official asked us to take down the reporting of it because it made the Chinese government look bad? Maybe you could kind of highlight a little bit as well.

Gary Locke: This is one of the great accomplishments of the United States Government and the embassy. And I'm really proud to have been part of that. And it was an incredible team effort and team project. I've heard from many leading environmental organizations in the United States saying that what we did in terms of air quality and the monitoring of air quality first in Beijing and then to other Chinese citizens profoundly changed the demand, the trajectory, the commitment of China toward cleaner energy and improving air quality.

And that that PM 2.5 monitoring machines single-handedly changed, for the better, the actions of the Chinese people and the Chinese government. So, I'm really proud of that. What we did is we put a monitor, a machine, on the top of the embassy roof to measure the air quality, and to make that information available to not just the embassy employees, but to all Americans in Beijing.

And at first, we disseminated the information in the infirmary or the health clinic. Well, not everybody goes into the health clinic. So, every day, every hour. And so, our staff determined that we need to use our website and put it on our website. And why did we broadcast it on our website to the entire American community, in fact the Chinese population, as opposed to just making an internal dissemination on the Internet? Because there's actually a U.S. law that says that if the embassy has information pertaining to the health and safety of its workers, it has to release that to the entire American community.

I mean, if we know that, let's say that there's radioactive air or there's a highly-communicable disease in the community, we just can't keep it to the American workers. Well, what about the Americans who are employees of other companies, whether it's Microsoft, Boeing, GE, Amazon, or American students or American tourists in the community. They need to have that information as well. And so, that's why we put it on our website and broadcast it.

Well, the Chinese were also seeing it, and there are some bloggers in Beijing, who are very influential, who have millions of followers who are also concerned about the environment. So, they would retweet, on their equivalent of Twitter, our hourly readings. And suddenly, the Chinese people were saying, "Oh my gosh, this is really severe. This is really indication of how bad the air quality is in Beijing. Why isn’t the Chinese government doing this?" And the Chinese government then response says, "Well, we are collecting this information, but we have no plans to make it public for a few years." At which point the Chinese people went ballistic over and said, "What are you trying to hide?" And so, it actually forced them to start reporting it much earlier, much sooner than they ever thought. And what happened is that shortly after we made all this information public, the Chinese government was in fact asking us not to make it public.

And we said, "Sorry, we have this duty, to all the Americans living in Beijing." And a lot of the American parents in Beijing wanted the information because they have kids in school, and they go to these international schools. Should the schools allow kids out at recess if the air quality is above a certain level, if it's dangerous? A lot of the schools just wanted our information to decide whether or not to cancel a soccer match or a cross country track meet if the air was bad. And so, it became very important. And then what happened is that there was many months later, we had an almost a week in which the air quality was so horrible. You could barely see across the street. And our readings reliably go up to 500. And I think the World Health Organization says that air quality, the PM 2.5 reading, if it's over above a hundred, a hundred and fifty, is unhealthy. And that's what the schools would look to.

But during this particular week, our machines registered 800 and finally the newspapers, the Communist government newspapers in their editorials said, “we can no longer pretend this is fog. We have a serious air pollution problem and it's killing people in China, affecting their health. We need to do something about it.” And so, that was a major turning point. Then we said, "Wait a second, we're doing this in Beijing at our embassy, but we also have American personnel in our consulates scattered throughout China. We need to be putting these machines on their rooftops as well. And making sure that that is given out to on their websites in Shanghai and Guangzhou and Wuhan and every other place.” And that's where we got a lot of pushback from the Chinese government saying, "Please do not make this information public." And we said, "But we have to."

James Green: Because their area of concern was that U.S. companies wouldn't locate to these cities or they had cities would be perceived as unhealthy or unsafe in some way and so-

Gary Locke: Yes, all of that. And then also the pressure by the Chinese citizens in those communities demanding that their policies change in terms of air quality, the use of coal, cleaner fuels and gasoline and buses, and the list goes on and on. PM 2.5 is measuring particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns, I think per cubic meter, or something like that. It's a term that most Americans have never heard of. It's the really nasty microscopic stuff that if it gets into your lungs, inhibit, quite frankly, the development of the human lung, especially among young kids.

And I think something like it is the human lung becomes fully developed by age 18, 19, 20 or whatever. And if not fully developed, it cannot develop later on when you're in the twenties or thirties. And so, this was really important information for American personnel. In fact, all foreigners living in China and took on such a life of its own. But anyway, so many people in China, virtually everybody in China knows about PM 2.5. Americans have never heard of it. And so, I will go around in China, even today and people will recognize me, and they'll come up to me and say, and they don't really speak any English other than to say, “xiexie PM 2.5,” which means, thank you, PM 2.5.

James Green: I wanted to move to 2012 when Secretary Clinton, Secretary of State Clinton, was set to come to Beijing for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, one of these large bilateral dialogues at the ministerial level and the blind legal activist, Chen Guangcheng, came to Beijing and ended up being detained and then released. Can you talk a little bit about your role on that and why that was important and how it ended up?

Gary Locke: Well, Chen Guangcheng was kind of a barefoot, self-educated lawyer, who would take in on unpopular causes in China to the consternation of local government, Chinese officials, and was jailed and prisoned. But after his release was constantly harassed. And when media and journalists and even celebrity movie stars tried to visit him, they were prevented from doing so; in some cases, roughed up. And he and his children suffered a lot of abuse. His house was constantly being raided and his family was monitored. And so, he became a cause célèbre in the human rights community around the world.

Somehow, he was able to escape his village. He kind of memorized the routine of the people watching him. And sometime at night he left his home, crawled over a fence and somehow broke his foot in the process or injured his foot in the process, made it to a nearby farm. And from there he was able to contact his human rights colleagues, comrades, elsewhere and they came and picked him up and brought him Beijing. And where he was was many hundreds of miles from Beijing, but they brought him. And of course, by then the Chinese government officials knew he had left his village where he was basically under house arrest. They were on the lookout for him. And we've got a call early one morning from his human rights activist friends saying that they had Chen Guangcheng and he needed medical care.

And he wanted to come into the embassy. We sent someone out to verify that it was in fact Chen Guangcheng. We did so, and then we had to figure out how do we get them into the embassy. If he tried to walk into the embassy, we have Chinese security guards outside the embassy, and they would have recognized him. They would have stopped him. They would not have allowed him to come in. So how do we get him in? We contacted Washington, D.C. and went through the highest levels and finally the decision was made. Yes, we would go out and pick him up in a car and bring him in.

And that of course is very controversial in terms of international law and whether that's acceptable behavior by any foreign government. But anyway, we brought him in and then the Chinese were very, very angry and upset. It felt that we had improperly, contrary to international law, gone out to take a Chinese person to bring them into the embassy. And the interesting thing is that Chen Guangcheng was not seeking political asylum. He was not seeking to come to the United States. He simply wanted, his demand was to be able to live outside of his village in another city, in another province, free of government harassment. And he wanted to stay in China to see the day and continue to work for a more democratic country.

That posed a problem because we don't let Chinese people, citizens, dissidents, live in the embassy. First of all, the embassy does not have a residential compound except for the Marine guards. And that became a huge international incident. And so, Secretary Clinton, along with the members of the administration, Secretary Geithner and many other Cabinet officials, National Security Advisors and everybody else, they were all planning on coming for a very high-level talks, very high level talks and very substantive talks in which things actually got done and things were agreed upon. And hopefully things would change, whether it's on cybersecurity or military issues to trade and other topics. We were then having to try to negotiate with the Chinese government on Chen Guangcheng's request demand to be able to live in another city

Because unlike in America, most people are not free in China to live in the city of their choice. If you're in growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, and you say, "Hey, I hear that Amazon is hiring people in Baltimore or the Washington, D.C. area, I'm gonna go move up to Baltimore, Maryland and get a job at Amazon." No, in China, you have to have permission of the government to live in that other city because all of your social educational benefits are tied to the city or province in which you grow up.

And if you do get a good education and you want to go to Beijing or Shanghai, you have to basically register and get the approval of the government in order to live there and to get housing.

Anyway, just before Secretary Clinton and the entire delegation arrived, we were able to arrange for him to leave the village, to leave the embassy, get medical care. And the Chinese government had promised that he would be free to live in another city. In fact, live on the campus of the university where he could continue education, and he basically get free room and board for himself and his entire family.

So, he left. We went to the hospital; we gave him several cell phones. With those cell phones, he contacted his human rights colleagues and comrades who convinced him that he should not trust the Chinese government at which point he wanted to come to the United States. But by then, we didn't have any negotiating leverage on his behalf because he was now in a Chinese hospital with the Chinese government. And the talks were about to begin. Secretary Clinton, to her credit, continued these discussions privately on the side and was able to convince the Chinese to allow him to leave China for the United States.

James Green: So, on that, and then I want to get to your exit as ambassador. You've been in a lot of different ministerial level meetings; you've been to a lot of provinces in terms of negotiating with Chinese officials. What do you think works and what doesn't work as well? What are the lessons that you've taken away based on now twenty years of going back and forth trying that as ambassador?

Gary Locke: It's very difficult to try to persuade any government to do something that it is not inclined to do. Think about let's say representatives of France urging the U.S. State Department or the White House to change their policies on this or that. We in America would say, who are you to tell us what to do? This is our policy. This is how we're planning on doing things; but out.

This is how we do things in America. Who are you to tell us or urge us to change? In meeting with government officials, it was oftentimes to advance the issues and the interests of American companies whose applications had been languishing for two or three years. And yet their Chinese competitors were getting their applications approved within months.

We were trying to make sure that we were advancing the interest of American companies, individuals, policies of the American government, to people and governments and bureaucracies who had their own way of doing things. So, you had to be very sensitive to their sovereignty, but at the same time try to indicate to them why it was in their national interest, or their own economic self-interest, to modify their behavior. Whether it was speeding up the applications, and treating people fairly, to the opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas and saying, hey, letting these American companies come in. Yes, it'll be competition for the Chinese companies, but it'll also make the Chinese companies more productive, more efficient, improve. Competition is good.

James Green: More competitive.

Gary Locke: It could actually increase the quality of their product or their service. And their Chinese customers will benefit from that. To a whole host of issues, to what it would mean in terms of the daily lives of the Chinese people, let's say, with greater cooperation on medical research, or making sure that China clamps down on counterfeit chemicals and pharmaceuticals. And the benefit to the Chinese reputation as well. And the benefit to the legitimate Chinese companies engaged in making pharmaceuticals.

And so, we were always trying to impress upon them the benefits to them. Not that this is how America is demanding things. And clearly on very sensitive geopolitical issues whether it's the Japanese islands or the islands in the South China Pacific, et cetera, or the South China Sea. Obviously, the United States government has very strong concerns about it. The Chinese government knows how we feel about it, but also trying to let them know that their reputation is affected as well.

James Green: How they're seen internationally, their perception. I wanted to end with your time as ambassador. You hinted at this, at the very high expectations for the first Chinese-American ambassador. I think probably as someone at the embassy at the time reading the commentary by the China news service, in which you were are called the unfavorable term “banana,” was kind of striking and kind of a new low in my view. What does that tell you about Chinese society or about Chinese leadership or how they see themselves or how they see the United States? How did you process that kind of a departure? It was kind of unfortunate that here you were, the crowning moment of your time as representing the United States in China, and the Chinese government was kind of small about how they dealt with your departure, unfortunately in my view. But I wonder how you consider those sorts of things.

Gary Locke: Yeah, there was this one Chinese government editorial that called me a banana, yellow on the outside, white on the inside and good riddance and perhaps the air will be cleaner when I leave, et cetera, et cetera. That was part of the propaganda arm of the Chinese government. Their need to cut me down to size and keep me in place because throughout the years before that, throughout our time in China, because of the initial early euphoria and incredible publicity we got for flying economy class to eating in the restaurants on our own as a family to shopping and buying our own groceries to that Starbucks picture carrying a backpack.

The Chinese government made it very clear to the press, or we were very aware, that the Chinese government wanted to keep us a little bit in check, that newspaper articles about let's say my visit to a Chinese hospitals celebrating U.S.-China collaboration, partnership on medical research, that those articles could not be on the front page. And the length of the article had to be limited. And the Chinese press would say, “I'm sorry, this is what we've been told.”

And yet I was able to have access to the highest government officials in China and many people in the embassy and observers said that the level of access to high-ranking Chinese government officials was unprecedented. So, there's one arm of the Chinese government trying to limit my notoriety or fame or whatever, my aura. And yet I'm able to meet with just about anybody in the Chinese government. What was really gratifying as I left was despite that snarky editorial by the propaganda arm of the Chinese government, there were so many bloggers who responded to that expressing outrage and embarrassment that that was the position of their own government.

And so, from the people themselves, I felt a lot of support and I was really touched that so many people would comment on that Chinese government editorial and basically coming to my defense and expressing thanks for what we had done.

James Green: Governor, Ambassador, Secretary Gary Locke thank you so much for taking a walk down memory lane and sharing your experiences dealing with China. I really appreciate all your time.

Gary Locke: Well, thank you very much. Let me just say that our experience in China was just so incredible. It was an opportunity for my children to discover the China of their ancestors and also to really appreciate just how fortunate we are as Americans. The liberties, the freedoms, the diversity that we have, the quality of life that we have in America. I know that they will not take what we have in America for granted.

And again, I am very proud of my Chinese culture and heritage, the contributions that China has made to world civilization over thousands and thousands of years. The inventions of the printing press, the compass, the clock, paper and gunpowder and everything else. But I'm still proud of what America stands for, our diversity, our openness, our democracy, our political system, our rule of law. And it was a great opportunity to serve America, the American people, and President Obama as U.S. Ambassador to China. It was a great time in our life, great people and colleagues at the embassy and actually some outstanding government officials in China, as well, who have really done an amazing thing raising the hundreds of millions of people in China out of the ranks of poverty.

James Green: Thanks again, I really appreciate your time.

Gary Locke: Thank you.

James Green: Governor Gary Locke, speaking with me from Seattle, Washington. You’ve been listening to the U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast from Georgetown University. I’m your host, James Green.