Ethnic diversity adds richness to a society.
Gary Locke
I consider myself a D.I.Y. home improvement guy. In a prior life, I completely gutted a house - redid the plumbing, wiring, moved sewage pipes, knocked down walls, everything.
I've been through WTO riots in Seattle, massive earthquakes, major floods... forest fires. I just try to be as even-keeled and calm as possible.
China's history is marked by thousands of years of world-changing innovations: from the compass and gunpowder to acupuncture and the printing press. No one should be surprised that China has re-emerged as an economic superpower.
Every year, some 65,000 high school students - many of them star students and leaders in their communities - are unable to go to college or get a good job because they have no legal status.
For generations, people have come to U.S. shores to seek opportunity. It's what my grandfather did a century ago, when he came to Seattle, and worked as a houseboy just one mile from the Washington State governor's mansion that I was privileged to inhabit for eight years.
The explosive growth in places like Shanghai has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a thriving new middle class. What China has done is nothing short of an economic transformation, and the citizens of this country have every right to be proud.
I think that people always just assumed that I was a liberal because I came from Southeast Seattle.
I confess to loving a good murder mystery - anything by Scott Turow or John Grisham. Maybe it's a holdover from my days as a criminal prosecutor in Seattle.
I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the microblogging that takes place in China, and the smartphones and all the people that want to take pictures of myself and my family.
On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is 'On China' by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.
If the Chinese can't buy U.S. products, they'll buy them from European countries and then develop stronger economic ties with France and Germany and perhaps side more with those countries when international issues flare up.
We want to promote people-to-people exchanges so that China and the United States can really join together, not just to solve the problems of China or the United States, but some of the big problems facing the entire world. From climate change to famine to even terrorism.
I understand that in these difficult economic times, the potential for any additional expense is not welcomed by American businesses. But in the long run, the health insurance reform law promises to cut health-care costs for U.S. businesses, not expand them.
Diversity of thought and culture and religion and ideas has been the strength of America.
We welcome Chinese investment in the United States with open arms.
As President Obama clearly said just a few months ago, China must play by the international rules, the international trading system from which they've benefited so much.
We've come a long way since Nixon's first visit to China, or Carter's reestablishment of diplomatic relations.
The constant influx of new cultures, new ideas and new ways of looking at old problems is a big part of the reason why America has been the most dynamic economy in the world for well over a century.
In rural parts of China, it's like stepping back into the era of my grandfather or great-grandfather - not much has changed.
The human rights record within China seems to rise and fall over time, but it's very clear that in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and since then, there's been a greater intolerance of dissent and the human rights record of China has been going in the wrong direction.
The growth model China has relied on for the last 30 years - one predicated on low-cost exports to the rest of the world and investment in resource intensive heavy manufacturing - is unlikely to serve it well in the next 30 years.
If we expose the Chinese to our freedoms, it may create a greater hunger for democracy, reform and liberties in China.
One of the last books I read was 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. It gives a really good behind-the-scenes look at the campaigns. I didn't ask the president how accurate it was. I wouldn't ask him that.
Americans are very easygoing people. If the added attention and great visibility that I have been able to generate can help open doors and expose more Chinese to American values and the American way of life, that is great.
China is a country, still, of great contrast. While hundreds of millions of people are part of the middle class and yearn for things made in America - American brands, movies, music - there are other hundreds of millions of people throughout China who are living on the equivalent of one U.S. dollar a day.
I think that there is a concern, a question mark, by people all around the world and governments all around the world, as to what China's intentions are.
The U.S. tries to provide immigrants who grow up here with a world-class education and imbue them with the can-do attitude that has long defined American innovation.
I'm so proud of my Chinese ancestry, but I was born and raised in America, and I really believe in American values, our American system, our freedom, our liberties.
My dad, of course, like a lot of Asian parents, wanted me to be an engineer or doctor and never could understand why I would want to be a lawyer. And then, when I first said I wanted to run for office, he thought that was absolutely insane.
China's own recent history proves that when it opens itself, there is nothing its people cannot accomplish. A more open China will lead to a more prosperous and stable China. That's good for China, the United States and, indeed, the entire world.
All the states are required, either by constitution or by statute, to have balanced budgets - they're not able to print money. So they have to focus on establishing priorities.
We need the private sector to succeed, because if the private sector succeeds, America succeeds. Because it's not the government that produces jobs, it's the private sector.
