Gao Xiqing interview in the new Atlantic

I think highly of Gao Xiqing. He is the president of the China Investment Corporation, which oversees about $200 billion of China's overseas investment, largely in U.S. markets. (You think you're worried about the market's collapse....) He knows the United States and American culture well: he went to Duke Law School in the 1980s, was the first Chinese citizen to pass the NY State Bar, and practiced at Richard Nixon's old firm, Mudge, Rose. And he gives every sign of having enjoyed this immersion in America. Twenty years ago he came back to help build China's securities industry, and he took his current position when the CIC was created last year.

Gao has an earthy, jokey command of colloquial English and -- at least on my exposure to him -- he laughs frequently, including about himself. (The picture above is how he would look just before cracking a joke.) I was grateful that he agreed to an on-the-record interview, in Beijing, shortly before the U.S. presidential election. I think it is worth reading with some care: the article about the interview is in the new issue, here.

In the previous issue of the Atlantic, I complained that Chinese officialdom generally has a tin ear when it comes to explaining itself to the outside world. It is trapped in formulations and stilted language -- "jackal with a human face" to refer to a certain "splittist" leader of Tibetans, for instance -- and seems unable to present arguments that actually engage the thought processes of the outside world, as opposed to reflecting internal-Chinese concepts and power plays. Gao is a striking exception. I am in no position to assess his financial expertise, but I can judge his ability to engage seriously with outside questions. If more powerful Chinese people spoke more often to more outsiders this way, things would be better all around. 

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2008/12/gao-xiqing-interview-in-the-new-atlantic/9156/