Brown and Chinese consul talk clean energy and IT

On the heels of a 40-minute chat with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Indian Wells last weekend, California governor Jerry Brown had his first meeting with Chinese Consul General in San Francisco Yuan Nansheng on Tuesday in Sacramento.

"California is the first economy and the biggest exporter to China among the 50 states," Yuan said. "We are very glad to see the frequent exchanges (between two sides) so far."

Yuan said he is looking forward to working closely with Governor Brown to bring more investment from China to California and enhance cooperation on clean energy, IT, infrastructure, cultural affairs and more.

Yuan said he highly appreciated Brown's trade mission to China in April for "promoting exchanges between the two sides", and also applauded the reopening of the California trade and investment office in Shanghai, which will further bilateral cooperation even more, he said.

On Brown's one-week trip to China, he led a delegation of 75 business leaders and officials from the Bay Area Council, a business organization in San Francisco that provided $1 million for the reopening of the trade office in Shanghai. During the visit, Brown met with China's premier, the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, and top officials from Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Jiangsu and Shanghai.

The governor also met with China's ministers of commerce and environmental protection, signing the first agreements ever between a sub-national entity of the US and Chinese ministries, according to the governor's office.

"We hope China exports more solar panels and efficient batteries as California continues its efforts to be the first in America in terms of renewable energy," Brown said on Tuesday. "We want China to accelerate its battery technology and invent even more efficient batteries, so we can find a way to store solar and wind energy through smaller and more efficient batteries. The US and China can cooperate to develop these technologies."

Brown continued: "We are very interested in electronic vehicles in California because we want to reduce pollution. The cooperation is going well, and BYD is opening a plant for electronic buses in California this year." He noted that California wants more Chinese capital invested in the state's roads, infrastructure, and high-speed rail.

During the talk with Yuan, Brown also shared his understanding of the "new type of relations between two powers", calling it "something we need between the US and China".

He said that in his 40-minute meeting with Xi he had discussed many issues, including climate change, new technology, "and one of the points I stressed was in this new economy, this new dream, that how we can live together".

Brown said the goal should be to produce wealth with less energy and less material, he explained, saying the old way was for a country to expand and take more land and more material from the ground. Increasingly today, wealth comes from the human mind. In Silicon Valley, the wealth comes from imagination, which does not require a huge amount of oil. When great minds get together, they can produce wealth and well-being without having to generate pollution or occupy more land, he said

"In that way, every country could achieve its goal without having to disadvantage another country," Brown said. "So it is a new model of a relationship, which I spoke about with Chinese President Xi Jinping."

Last weekend, Brown sent President Xi a scale model of a statue by noted Native American sculptor Doug Hyde that sits in downtown Palm Springs. The sculpture represents two Cahuilla women carrying baskets of bounty harvested from the desert and an olla water container.

During his China trip in April, Brown presented China's premier Li Keqiang with a Berkeley Mills "natural edge" table crafted from a California coastal redwood tree. Berkeley Mills CEO and founding craftsman, Gene Agress, said the symbolism behind the table's design is peace, prosperity and the value of family. Because of its design and handcrafted construction it will endure for centuries, he said, adding that the table has not been stained, allowing it to take on a natural and uniquely beautiful tone as it ages, and the cedar base has not been finished to allow its fragrant ginger aroma to fill the room it sits in.

The coastal redwood is found in groves along California's Pacific coastline from Monterey County to the Oregon border. The governor has tables crafted by Berkeley Mills in his office and home.

"I created and designed this table commissioned by Governor Jerry Brown, to symbolize peace, prosperity and friendship," Agress said. "This redwood stood for centuries in one of the beautiful forests in our home state of California. We left the natural edge on the slab to remind us of the natural world we took it from and out of deep respect and humility for the wood."

chenjia@chinadailyusa.com