Senator McCaskill says we don’t have to like China to do business with it.
McCaskill was part of the latest Missouri trade mission to China. She had misgivings about the country and its politics before she went and says the visit has not changed her mind about the heavy-handedness of the Chinese government. In fact, she says she witnessed blatant censorship for the first time in her life–when she was in her hotel room watching a CNN report on Tibet when the screen went blank.
All of that aside, she says, Missouri needs to strengthen business ties with it’s fourth biggest trading partner. She says Missouri needs to be "very smart" in accessing Chinese markets with Missouri and United States products.
She says China is growing at an "unbelievable rate." For example, she says, in the city of Shanghai, workers will finish building two-thousand skyscrapers taller than 25 stories. She says one-quarter of all of the construction cranes in the world are in Shanghai.
McCaskill says she’s talking about a nation of 1.3-billion people with a rapidly-growing middle class…and says that means China is a great export market for Missouri.
Download Bob Priddy’s story (:62 mp3)
