Chinese Delegates Visit the PRC

Chinese Visit

Austin Mayor Adler visited China as part of a long-term multiparty effort to significantly enhance bilateral economic activity between Central Texas and China. Apparently, his visit was a tipping point in the discussions as on October 12-14, Austin was visited by a delegation from China. On the 12th, they met with our Lt. Governor. On the 13th, they met with business leaders in the area to be exposed to a variety of investment and partnering ideas. UT President Greg Fenves was their luncheon speaker and IC2 was part of the business discussion. On the 14th, they started with breakfast at the Adlers', then to Samsung to show that an Asian company can prosper here, and then came to the PRC for lunch and a tour.

They explicitly asked to visit research at UT with particular interest in microelectronics, supercomputing, clean energy and robotics.  With schedule overruns in the morning, the tours had to be truncated, but the shortened tour schedule was augmented by an overview of UT by Maria Arrellaga, of the UT President’s office, and an overview of the PRC by Bob Hebner.

Shannon Strank spearheaded the tours, Xianyong Feng served as a bilingual host, and Roy Peña served as our chief photographer for the group.

Ironically, the best lead for a possible collaboration for CEM came not from the Chinese visitors, but from a Mexican visitor who was accompanying the delegation.