HEFEI OFFICIALS PAINT OPTIMISTIC PICTURE OF PROGRESS IN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 SHANGHAI 000209 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE ALSO PASS USTR FOR WINTER, ALTBACH STATE ALSO FOR CA/VO USDOC FOR ITA DAS KASOFF, MAC/OCEA-SZYMANSKI USDOC ALSO PASS USPTO FOR WU USDOE FOR INTERNATIONAL/PUMPHREY AND GEBERT STATE PASS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION CHAN/KAFAFI/HUBER TREASURY FOR OASIA - HAARSAGER, WINSHIP TRANSPORTATION FOR OST X-1, X-40 DOT FOR OFFICE OF INTL AVIATION DOT FOR FRA/RDV EMBASSY BEIJING ALSO FOR PAS, MARY KAY CARLSON E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV ECON ELTN CVIS TPHY SENV SCUL KIPR CH SUBJECT: HEFEI OFFICIALS PAINT OPTIMISTIC PICTURE OF PROGRESS IN LEAST AFFLUENT PART OF CONSULAR DISTRICT SHANGHAI 00000209 001.2 OF 004 ¶1. (U) Summary. As part of Consulate efforts to scale up outreach to Anhui Province, the least affluent part of our consular district, the Consul General and Pol/Econ chief visited the provincial capital of Hefei April 8-9. During the visit, the Consul General met with Governor Wang Sanyun and Provincial Foreign Affairs Office officials and raised IPR concerns with the Hefei Mayor and municipal investment promotion officials. The Governor and Provincial Tourism Bureau officials noted hopes for increased tourism to Anhui from the 2010 Shanghai Expo; environmental officials detailed progress on water quality issues, and education officials admitted that recruitment and retention of qualified teachers remains a serious challenge in the Anhui countryside. The CG also spoke to students at Anhui University and visited the Anhui Children's Welfare Institute and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP). Septels will report on Deputy Principal Officer's Hefei meetings and activities in late April. End summary. Governor: Building Infrastructure for Better Tomorrow -------------- -------------- ¶2. (U) The Consul General, Pol/Econ Chief and Consulate interpreter visited Hefei April 8-9. Governor Wang Sanyun painted reasons for economic optimism in Anhui, saying that China's economic stimulus plans will bring another 3,400 kilometers of rail lines - all high-speed - to the province over the next several years, with electrification upgrades planned for another 1400 kilometers of existing rail lines. Hefei-to-Beijing travel will be less than three hours by rail within three years. A new international airport for Hefei has broken ground in a western suburb, and should be operational in ¶2011. Anhui has lagged its neighbors in economic growth for many years, the Governor noted, but a new period of opening up for Anhui has dawned, and the prospect of resolving transportation bottlenecks through expansion of rails and improvements to waterways and roads means Anhui can overtake its neighbors and promote regional economic integration and globalization. ¶3. Anhui shipped 10 billion kilograms of grains to other parts of China in 2008, Wang boasted, and the leading provincial industries of construction materials and cement should fare well under the economic stimulus plans. Natural resources - scenic mountains, coal and limestone - and abundant labor, strong engineering talent emerging from universities and national-level research institutes, and development of tourism, amusement parks and a nascent cartoon industry mean bright future prospects for Anhui. First-quarter economic data had already shown signs of an economic rebound, with provincial power generation climbing 15.6 percent and power consumption growing 7.7 percent. (Note: Anhui was one of the provinces hit hard by January-February 2008 snowstorms, which inter alia damaged the electricity distribution network. End note.) First-quarter fiscal revenue had climbed about six percent year-on-year, while industrial output had climbed more than 17 percent. Hefei Mayor: Welcome More U.S. Investment, IPR Important -------------- -------------- ¶4. (U) Hefei Mayor Wu Cunrong noted that the rail improvements will connect Hefei and Shanghai in two hours travel time 25 times per day by August 2010. The Mayor expressed particular hope for additional U.S. business and U.S. Government activities in Hefei and the province on environmental protection, cultural activities and scientific and technological undertakings. Anhui companies represent an important market for energy efficiency SHANGHAI 00000209 002.2 OF 004 technologies from abroad. ¶5. The Mayor quickly and enthusiastically endorsed our recommendation that Hefei or the province should publish a White Paper on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement as part of efforts to attract new foreign direct investment and protect the legitimate interests of the more than 3000 foreign-invested enterprises already in Hefei. He instructed Hefei Investment Promotion Bureau Director Mr. Lan Tian to make follow-up inquiries to relevant local offices about early preparation of an IPR White Paper. Tourism Potential Recognized -------------- ¶6. (U) Anhui Provincial Tourism Deputy Director General Zhang Xueping outlined plans to promote more `green tourism' to Anhui's scenic mountain areas and ancient villages; `red tourism' to sites associated with the Communist Party's rise to power, and `blue tourism' to Anhui's lakes and rivers (including more tourism along the Yangtze River and connecting to destinations in neighboring jurisdictions). Tourism officials are working with local tour operators and the hotel and hospitality industries to also develop rural tourism (bed-and-breakfast on farms, pick your own produce) and even tourism, especially by student groups, to industrial sites such as advanced or historic factories. ¶7. Thrice-weekly flights between Hefei and Seoul were launched in March 2009 to bring businesspersons and tourists from South Korea to Anhui; the province hopes to someday land flights from European cities as well. Tourism has become a pillar industry for Anhui, providing 8.3 percent of the province's GDP in 2008. The Tourism Bureau has an ambitious target for attracting a substantially increased number of tourists to Anhui during the Shanghai 2010 Expo (May 1 - October 31, 2010),although final details of cooperative tourism promotion are still being worked out with the Shanghai Tourism Bureau. Teacher Supply a Continuing Challenge, However -------------- -------------- ¶8. (U) Anhui Provincial Education Department Director-General Cheng Yi, a former university mathematics professor, noted that Anhui suffers from a chronic shortage of teachers for grades 1-9. The shortage is uneven within the province, with some small remote villages having only one teacher for all grades, far too few teachers in the more populous countryside in northern Anhui, and a better situation in most cities. The Central Government and local communities are providing salary subsidies to recruit more college graduates to teach in villages, an expansion of a successful program already undertaken in western China for three years and now expanded to Anhui and other central China provinces. ¶9. The global financial crisis and difficulties in job placement may prove a boon to hiring more qualified teachers in the short term, DG Cheng hopes. Even so, 3-5 years of hiring more and better quality teachers will be required for Anhui to get its compulsory education system more regularized. Higher teacher salaries (a responsibility of local governments) are the key to resolving the quantity and quality of teachers. SHANGHAI 00000209 003.2 OF 004 ¶10. (U) Two million of Anhui's nine million students are sons and daughters of migrant worker parents who spend most or all of the year in other provinces in China. Those left behind are usually cared for by grandparents, too often without sufficient family reinforcement of the importance of education, Cheng said. Some unemployed returned migrant workers have brought their children back with them to Anhui, leading to new challenges about reintegrating children into local schools. Even before the economic downturn, expenditure of RMB 2.1 billion was planned over a two-year period to rebuild many primary schools in Anhui, with the quality of school construction guaranteed. Anhui is keen on developing more English instruction programs for schoolchildren and on expanding cooperation projects with U.S. educational institutions. Water Quality an Urgent Challenge -------------- ¶11. (U) The CG also called on the Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau. Chief Engineer Zhang Zhiyuan said water quality is the most urgent pollution problem facing Anhui, but numerous wastewater treatment plants are under construction and important progress has been made in reducing pollution discharges. Indeed, the goal of new pollution control efforts is to prevent future pollution, especially treatment of industrial and urban domestic wastewater, not on remediating extant pollution problems. ¶12. (U) In a province that still has 26 percent forest cover, ten Anhui cities score worrisome marks for the incidence of acid rain, some of which is caused by locally-emitted pollutants and some by pollutants blown in from elsewhere. Perfection of the `local government responsibility evaluation system' (i.e., making promotion of government officials and Communist Party cadre more dependent on meeting environmental protection work requirements) will be a crucial factor in meeting environmental protection goals. Continuing public education on the concept of environmental protection is another important step in moving from today's situation to better environmental quality in the future. Chief Engineer Zhang noted that even in Anhui, people are demanding environmental quality improvements for the welfare of the people. Tokamak: What Bilateral Scientific Cooperation Can Be -------------- -------------- ¶13. (U) Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP) Director Professor Li Jiangang led the CG on a tour of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) research fusion reactor outside Hefei. Chinese scientists at this major research institute (460 staff, 100 contractors, about 500 Masters and Ph.D. students now) have been collaborating with U.S. scientists since 1982, including with the University of Texas at Austin, the Princeton Plasma Lab, UCLA, UC-San Diego, and General Atomic of San Diego. Cutting edge research there could lead to an operational fusion reactor in another 30 - 50 years, Professor Li estimated. ¶14. (SBU) Modern telecommunications allows remote monitoring and control of tokamak experiments around the clock by three shifts, one in Anhui, another in Europe and one in the United States. However, this extensive record of productive high-level bilateral scientific collaboration is dimmed, Li said, by the unpredictable and lengthy administrative processing times (i.e., stateside multiagency processing of Security Advisory Opinions) SHANGHAI 00000209 004.2 OF 004 for the visas that IPP scientists and staff need to meet their scientific partners or to attend scientific conferences in the United States. As an example, Li told us that he had applied on February 9 for a U.S. nonimmigrant visa to attend a March 12 meeting in the United States; as of April 9 his application was still awaiting a Washington reply. Students and Orphans -------------- ¶15. (U) The CG spoke at Anhui University about the changes seen in the U.S.-China relationship since diplomatic relations were normalized in 1979. 480 enthusiastic students listened raptly and embraced the opportunity to pose questions about the economic downturn, U.S. perceptions of human rights in China, employment prospects for their stateside peers, and how soon President Obama might visit China. ¶16. (U) We also visited the Anhui Children's Welfare Institute, home to about 500 orphans, about 90 percent of whom have mental or physical challenges. This orphanage is an important source of orphans placed in domestic and international adoptions, including to the United States; and the orphanage receives important financial assistance from the California-based `Half the Sky Foundation'. The visit was an opportunity to underscore the benefits of people-to-people engagement and the constructive role U.S. NGOs can play in China. Many preschool orphans greeted us warmly, while grade school orphans were returning from the local elementary school and getting to work on that day's homework. Comment -------------- ¶17. (U) Anhui is home to some of China's most spectacular scenery (Huangshan National Park) and remote impoverished communities, and a provider of millions of migrant workers to other parts of China. The province also boasts important automotive industries, cultural and performing arts, and the ancestral homes of several current and past top members of the Communist Party of China. The recognized need for improved environmental protection and the eagerness for increased engagement with the United States in business and investment, education, pollution control and other sectors make Anhui a rich target for increased Consulate outreach and reporting travel. Consulate is forming a dedicated transformational diplomacy team focused on Anhui to structure and guide that increased outreach. CAMP