Beijing's Dinners and Revolutions
By Bill Powell / Beijing
Saturday night's dinner amidst the gardens of the Jianfu Palace, tucked away in the Northwest corner of the Forbidden City, brought together the power brokers who had forged the ties that today bind China and the United States. Blue bloods and red bloods, you might say, gathered for a valedictory celebration of their achievements: Hosted by Hong Kong real estate developer Ronnie Chan, the purpose was to put a punctuation mark at the end of an era -- an exclamation point, not a period.
The formal name of the palace, built in 1740 and recently restored, translates as the Garden of the Palace of Established Happiness, its choice an elegant if subtle acknowledgement that the Americans present had contributed to this extraordinary moment in China's long history. Henry Kissinger, the architect of the opening to China in 1972, was there. So, too, was former President George H.W. Bush, who took considerable political risks at home to rebuild Sino-American relations in the wake of Tiananmen Square. And also Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former chief executive of AIG and one of the earliest and most aggressive U.S. investors in the New China. They were joined by a legion of American CEOs. But Bush and Kissinger -- bureaucratic rivals within the U.S. government 30 years ago -- were the focal points. Both men are now octogenarians, literally old friends of China. And this "was a moment to thank them," said one Chinese participant, "and, in a sense , say farewell."
The dinner guests from China's business and government establishments, led by 70 year old Wu Yi, China's "Iron Lady", were a bit younger, but not by much. They may run the country's huge state owned companies and the government that minds them, but in a China dominated by the Communist Party, leadership is chosen, and replaced, by generation. The diners at the Jianfu Palace were smart, and like Madame Wu, as tough as can be, but they are conservative, and they do things by the book. Dinner was served by scores of waitresses clad in qipao. The guests listened to traditional Chinese music, and they sat through toast after toast.
But the Jianfu Palace affair was not the only A-list dinner in town. Almost simultaneously, exactly 30 miles north, in the shadow of the Great Wall, China's next establishment gathered to welcome their foreign friends. Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin are, as one foreign press story put it last year, are the "it" couple among China's new entrepreneurs. Husband and wife, both in their mid forties, they run SOHO China, the largest private property developers in Beijing, and a company known for its sleek, stylish properties. On Saturday night, at a resort development at the Wall known as "the Commune,'' Pan and Zhang, his elegant CEO/spouse, hosted 1,000 of their closest friends. Robin Li, the young CEO of Baidu, China's Google, was there. So, too, was Chao Yang, one of the smartest young bankers in Beijing, and his wife Li Yifei, who for years ran Viacom China for Sumner Redstone; Wendi Deng and her older husband -- a guy named Murdoch... As at Jianfu, the list went on. Movie stars (Maggie Cheung); models, foreign media big shots -- this was a celebration of the Next China, at an event, the Beijing Olympics, that will forever demarcate past from future in this country.
The guests, many wearing fluorescent red stars, the SOHO corporate symbol, stood on the grounds of the Commune, sipping champagne and listening to rock bands and rappers alike -- at one point the guests dancing, memorably, to the version of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech set to a hip-hop beat. You wouldn't hear that in the Forbidden City.
Here was part of China's new business establishment-in-formation, and in style and attitude, it could not be more different from the one bidding its Western counterparts farewell at the Jianfu Palace. Many, of course, have been educated in the West, and worked there. (SOHO's Zhang went to Oxford and worked at Goldman Sachs.) The point is not that they are merely comfortable in hip, international settings. They are creating them.
But, make no mistake, this crowd is linked, inextricably and powerfully, to the elderly power brokers dining, rather more formally, 30 miles to the south. In China, respect for your elders, for your forbears, is even more important than making money. And as Robin Li, the Baidu CEO, told a friend, parties like the one at the Commune last night don't arise out of thin air. They are not a historical accident. Nothing about China, in the late summer of 2008, was preordained. Li, a celebrity in China for his success as well his good looks, understands this acutely, and put it succinctly: "Without them,'' he said, referring the generation saying their good byes at the Forbidden City,"without what they have done, we don't exist."