We have just concluded four days in Shanghai, China. We left that city on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend in Hong Kong before the next phase of our Trade and Peace mission, which will take us to Taiwan, where we will be from Sunday to Thursday. When I questioned why we couldn’t proceed directly to our next location, Taipei, Taiwan, I learned that the tensions between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan prevent travelers from flying directly between Shanghai and Taipei. You must first fly through another country.

Hong Kong, China qualifies as a separate country. It operates differently than the rest of China. Under the “one country two systems” understanding, for the next fifty years Hong Kong will be governed under its own legal system. With an area of 404 square miles, it is about four times the size of Washington, D.C. The territory consists of Hong Kong Island, Stonecutter’s Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, and various surrounding islands. The territory, which dates from 1841, was established officially when China ceded Hong Kong Island to Great Britain in the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutter’s Island were added in 1860 with the signing of the Treaty of Peking. Britain obtained a 99-year lease on the remainder, called the New Territories, in 1898. On July 1, 1997, the entire territory reverted to Chinese sovereignty, on the date when the lease on the New Territories was to expire. Hong Kong is now a “Special Administrative Region” of the People’s Republic of China.

Hong Kong’s population at the end of 1998 was approximately 6.5 million people with the overwhelming majority being ethnic Chinese. Most were born in Hong Kong, with others coming from China or other countries in Asia. The expatriate community includes about 50,000 U.S. citizens, representing a major foreign presence in the territory. Other major expatriate groups are from the Phillipines, Canada, Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. The official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. Cantonese is the most common Chinese dialect spoken, although Mandarin is becoming more common, and English is widely used in government and business.

In addition to serving as Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor, I fly for a major airline, and thus earn my living by traveling. I have been all over North America and Europe and have seen many, many airports. The airports in Shanghai and Hong Kong are very impressive. Also, the rail system connecting the Hong Kong airport to the city of Hong Kong is one of the most modern and efficient systems I have ever been on. This city of 6.5 million needs a system like this one to serve what is described as the densest population center in the world. Seeing the skyline of the city of Hong Kong was a humbling experience. I did not realize how modern and massive this city was. As I said, as an airline pilot who routinely sees big cities, I was very impressed by Hong Kong.

As soon as we checked into our Hong Kong hotel, Secretary of Commerce and Economic Development Kevin Dorn, Vice-President of International Business of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce Curtis Picard, and I had our first meeting.

It is my opinion that the future of trade may look something like a company named J.Smart. J.Smart is located in Burlington, Vermont and designs programs for wireless devices and cell phones. We met with two representatives of IIL, J.Smart’s Hong Kong partner; they were the 25-year-old CEO and the 23-year-old Business Development manager.

IIL is a small Hong Kong based company that employs 50 people. They describe themselves as a “value added distributor.” Here is an example of what that means. They find a small Vermont company on the internet that produces gaming software. J.Smart’s games both challenge and entertain people. IIL contracts for J.Smart’s games, then cuts, pastes, tests, and modifies them to fit the individual needs of 20 various hardware producers’ customers’ requirements. These hardware producers in turn provide these games to 160 million Asians who are stuck in traffic commuting to and from work on overloaded busses and mass transit systems. Cell phone and wireless device users can download these games. Every time they use a game in Asia, a small Vermont company gets paid for their great software. Pretty cool stuff! IIL told us they’d love to purchase more software from Vermont.

While I’ve said without irony that one of my goals here is to promote world peace, I don’t harbor illusions about the magnitude of the contribution 20 Vermonters traveling in Asia can make. Even so, if world peace can be fostered one friendship at a time, we are achieving our goal.