The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) has urged Beijing and Washington to push more negotiations down to working-level officials, saying businesses need greater long-term stability in bilateral ties than leader-level diplomacy alone can provide.
Michael Hart, president of the chamber, said American businesses were encouraged by the unprecedented frequency of meetings between the presidents of China and the US, but warned that working-level officials had less time to prepare for the talks and develop substantive outcomes.
“We’re feeling confident because there are two more meetings to come,” Hart said at the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Wednesday.
“[But] the bad part is that normally it’s the working-level bureaucrats who actually deal with clear facts, and when the two leaders are making decisions, you don’t have enough of them.”