We arrived yesterday at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai with the Tuesday Breakfast Club group headed by our chairman Max Soliven.  Among those with us are Philippine Star and Stargate director Dr. Ronnie Asuncion, Tony Lopez of BizNews Asia, and hotelier Arthur Lopez.  We’re staying at the Westin Hotel, which is one of the most modern hotels in Shanghai.

I first came to China in 1974, when the Philippines started its “basketball diplomacy.”  This was shortly after the historic visit of President Richard Nixon in 1972, the year when the United States established relations with China.

I was there as the news reporter for Channel 9 together with the Philippine basketball team.  Our delegation was headed by our chief of mission Ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Romualdez (an older brother of my father).  His deputy was Lito Puyat, then the president of the Basketball Association of the Philippines.  If I remember correctly, there were 15 of the top basketball players with us, and some of them were basketball giants Mon Fernandez, Sonny Jaworski, Francis Arnaiz, and Jimmy Mariano.

China was a closed society then.  One of those who went and lived there during the martial law years was Chito Sta. Romana, a former schoolmate of mine at La Salle.  He is now the ABC News bureau chief in Beijing.  Few people from the Philippines traveled to China then.  Certainly, it was different going there officially for the Philippines.  It was also my first experience as an amateur “diplomatic analyst.”

I was briefed shortly before leaving for China by then Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor Jr., who told me what to observe especially those we were expected to meet like Deng Xiao Ping and Chinese premier Zhou Enlai—who at that time had just suffered a stroke.

It was fascinating to see China for the first time.  China as I read it from books and from several accounts of people who had been there said it was like a country frozen in time.  It was really more than just backward.  In fact, the Friendship Hotel where we stayed was the only one existing at the time in Beijing.  Also called the Youyi, this massive complex was built by the Russians in the 1950s.

Having large rooms and only one restaurant, it was really like a guesthouse where most of the official visitors were billeted.  It was reported that many died there during the Cultural Revolution.  China being a land of many legends and superstitions, it was natural to hear stories about ghosts haunting the rooms.  My roommate Noble Soriano—publisher of Sunburst magazine that he put up with Max Soliven as partner—and I always could sense that someone was in the room watching us.

I went back to China in 1983, and though I am only in Shanghai at this time, I could see how different things are.  The city is now a far cry from what it was many years ago.  You can no longer recognize it except for a few buildings reminiscent of Old London.  When Shanghai was the seat of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it was flooded with posters of the smiling chairman.  Everyone seemed to dress alike and many of the circa-1930s buildings left by the foreigners who occupied China were converted into government offices.

Now called the “Paris of Asia,” Shanghai is the commercial and industrial center of China.  Aside from the Westin, there are many five-star hotels like the Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton, Holiday Inn, and the Hilton that are almost always fully booked with businessmen and tourists.  While skyscrapers seem to dominate the skyline, visitors could still see traces of European and Japanese influences in some of the buildings.  The city is crowded with shopping malls and department stores, which are filled with Chinese consumers with continuously rising disposable incomes.

Recognized as an economic giant that could even surpass the Japanese economy as seen in its phenomenal contribution of four percent of the world total output, China’s economy has grown by leaps and bounds.  It attracted $52.7-billion worth of foreign investments in 2002, and the per capita income has increased at a yearly average of 9 percent since 1980.  In fact, Fitch’s forecast on China's GDP growth for 2005 is 7.5 percent.

China is a great example of a country that has successfully transformed itself from a closed society to a successful economy.  Of course, credit goes to Deng Xiao Ping who was the architect of China’s modernization and economic turnaround.  The Chinese have put to good use their heavy population of over a billion.  But even with its booming economy, the shortage of skilled and experienced managers and CEOs could still hamper the progress that China is experiencing right now.  It has around 25,000 state companies and more than 4 million private corporations.  But these businesses need 75,000 experienced managers and CEOs if the country wants to sustain its progress over the next 10 years.  A recent Newsweek article reported that despite the huge population, there are only 3,000 to 5,000 trained business managers in China.

We may not be as big as China but definitely, the Philippines has more than an even chance to transform itself the way China did.  We have many qualified and skilled professionals but the lack of opportunities here are forcing them to leave and contribute to the brain drain.  In fact, some of the best fund managers in Wall Street are Filipinos.  The sad part is even doctors are leaving the country to work as nurses in the US and Canada.  There are many young people today who are so frustrated and want to seek greener pastures abroad.

I never discourage them from leaving, but I always tell them—“Never, never burn your bridges with the country of your birth because there is no question in my mind that some day, you will be back.”  As a matter of fact, many immigrants who have lived abroad for 20 or 30 years have started to come back.  For example, Danny Hernandez—an old high school classmate at the Ateneo who has lived in Australia for the last 20 years—is now preparing to come back and retire in the Philippines.

China has gone through many upheavals—the European occupation, Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Massacre—but the reforms initiated by Deng Xiao Ping paved the way for modernization in industry, agriculture, science and technology.  Admittedly, it’s not all smooth and hunky-dory in China.  Many parts of the country are still mired in poverty, many are still uneducated and ignorant, child labor still persists, and industrial pollution are reaching alarming levels.  Filipinos of Chinese descent are now coming back to China and in fact making a fortune.  There is no doubt that China has transformed itself and reawakened into the great power that it is today.

Perhaps the Philippines is going through a continuing cycle of political turmoil one after the other just like China did.  But like all things—all these will come to pass.  I am convinced we too will one day wake up and become a prosperous nation.  Our day will come!

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