it was a big event of 5000+ people, hundreds of CEOs, a dozen Chinese mayors and all the Chinese American politicians, plus high-profile businesses, investors, entrepreneurs and technologists are gethering together in Santa Clara for three days to promote the innovation and cooperation between China and US.

Said that the Chinese business sponsors were more than happy to pay for the appearance fee $150,000 for the former president Bill Clinton who gave the keynote speech in the opening yesterday.  Bill, as usual, was a great speaker.  He mentioned during the Q&A that China's entry into WTO marked a great turning point for China to be an integrated part of the world economy and he personally made a big effort for that.  A big applause from the crowd, of course, because indeed, without WTO membership, China's economy would not have developed this far.  

Funny thing is that only a few days ago, Mrs. Clinton made some very harsh remarks on China's trade and currency policy and even called for allies to join the efforts to force China to behave better.  There is lots of tension there in the bilateral trade right now.  That is perhaps why Bill Clinton had to say at the very beginning of his speech something to the effect that we have many issues, even conflicts between our two countries, but, he continued, it is a win-win we should sit and talk to resolve the issues and promote the trade.  

He promoted his foundation and his engagement with the foundation to get involved in some poorest areas of the world to help develop the economy while protecting the environment.  

In answering the questions, which international leaders impressed him the most.   Before he praised, as expected, the then Chinese president Jiang Zeming and premier Zhu Rongji, who are the best partners to lead China at its best, he went on with a long list of the leaders whom he admires and was close friends with: Mandela, Yeltsin, Yitzhak Rabin, etc. 

 it was fun.  Here is my short video for the news: