Israel-Asia Center

Israel-Asia Center: Can you talk about the circumstances that led you to being sent to Beijing in 1990?

In September 1987, a meeting took place in the General Assembly of the UN in New York between the foreign ministers of China and Israel. Following this meeting, the ball of relations started rolling in the direction of normalization. Prior to this, semi-official contacts were developed in mid-June at the initiative of the General Consul of Israel in Hong Kong, Reuven Merchav, between him and the representative of China who served under the umbrella of the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua.

Following meetings in January 1989 in Paris between the foreign ministers and in May in New York between the Director General of the Israel Foreign Ministry, Reuven Merchav and the representative of China at the UN, Li Luye, it was decided to establish interest offices in Tel Aviv and in Beijing. In Tel Aviv, it was decided to establish an office of the China International Travel Service (CITS) and in Beijing a Liaison Office of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, which is not a government body.

The agreement between the Foreign Ministry and the Academy of Science towards the establishment of the liaison office stated, among other things, that “the representative of the Academy will be a senior scientist nominated by the Academy in agreement with the Ministry and the delegation will be made up of additional delegates nominated by the Ministry. All delegates will be presented to the China Foreign Ministry and to the outside as representing the Academy”.

Why was I the lucky one to be asked to be the first official representative of Israel in China? The story is simple but meaningful. The Israelis, out of politeness, asked the Chinese from which field of science they prefer the Israeli representative to be. The answer was agriculture, and specifically water in agriculture. As luck would have it, in January 1990 I completed a term as the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Research Organization of the Ministry and my expertise was soil-plant-water relation. My friend Professor Yoash Vaadia, at that time the Vice President of the Hebrew University, “betrayed” this fact to the Academy of Science, which offered me the position. Personally I was ready to agree on the spot, but out of politeness and in order to consult with my wife who I was certain would agree, I delayed my response for a day.

In fact my interest in going to China preceded the offer. In an international scientific conference I met the director of the Soil Science Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing. I invited him to visit Israel, which he did, at which time I voiced my interest in spending a sabbatical year at his institute. He promised to check with his superiors, but his answer was slow to arrive. In hindsight I understood that because of the political situation, there was no chance.

IAC: What preparation were you given for being Israel's representative in China prior to the establishment of diplomatic relations and how did your expectations live up to reality?

Six weeks after the first meeting with the Israel Academy, we were on our way to China. During these six weeks, I was led through a series of meetings with various organizations or persons within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israeli universities and other institutions, which had some knowledge of or experience with China.
 
The document we received before leaving for our mission, which was called Terms of reference for operating the academic center in Beijing, stated as follows: "The academic center is the beginning of the first institutionalized presence of Israel in China. Being the representative of the Academy of Science, the center is obliged to first of all deal in relationships between the Israel Academy and the two Chinese Academies of Science and of Social Science…the center should behave as if it is on the way of becoming an embassy.”

The developments of ties between the government and people of China and the government and people of Israel has another dimension, which should be remembered and stressed whenever you turn as the first permanent representative of Israel. This is that the Jewish people and the China people are ancient nations which left their imprint on the history of humanity. It would be fitting that the two countries will strive for mutual recognition and fruitful encounter between the two cultures”. We acted in light of these directives.

We arrived in China on April 1st 1990 by way of Hong Kong. The visit in Hong Kong was necessary not only because there were no direct flights between Israel and China, but also in order to obtain entry visas to China in our Israeli passports. The agreement between Israel and China was of warming the relationship through opening (allegedly) non-governmental offices, in the Chinese terminology relation of “people to people” not “state to state”. Thus issuing visas were not to be done in the host countries.
Our short stay in Hong Kong was used for another essential purpose, which was to choose for ourselves Chinese names. Since Chinese is a pictorial language and each character is essentially a syllable, and since Hebrew syllables do not necessarily conform to known Chinese characters, a Chinese name must be chosen that will be as similar as possible to the Hebrew name and also have a dignified meaning. Secilia, the office manager of our consulate in Hong Kong, took upon herself to do the job. She took the first syllable of my family name “Sha” and made it into my full family name and she turned the rest of my surname, with necessary changes into my first name “He Wei”. So my full name was Sha HeWei. (In China, the family name precedes the first name). The dignified meaning of my name is sand (Sha) which is my profession as a soil scientist and honorable (Wei) peace (He). She took my wife’s name Sheila and made it into her full name Xi La which means the pool (La) of the west (Xi).

IAC: Can you talk about what your job there involved and what challenges you faced?

My function was to provide scientific-professional basis for our office whose final objective was to promote the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The professional- diplomatic duties were the responsibility of Yoel Guilatt of the Foreign Ministry.

At the beginning we encountered suspicion and lack of trust by the locals, who were not sure we were for real. They learned from experience to be cautious with every new foreigner. Breaking the ice, lowering the apprehension which penetrated the conscience of people through 40 years of separation and dissociation from Israel and creating the awareness that something is changing in the relations between China and Israel required hard work and demonstrative presence any place we could reach. Our presence gradually instilled into the consciousness of the international community, especially in the Middle East, that the normalization of relations between China and Israel is an irreversible process.

Work was endless, was very interesting, at times exciting and always suspenseful. The day began at 7:30 in the morning, twice a week in studying Chinese and the other days in the office doing things before the staff arrived. Chinese turned out to be an impossible language. I vowed that within a year I will be able to converse in Chinese. This did not happen after the second year either. At least I could tell a taxi driver where to go or ask where the bathroom was - not a small feat indeed.

Every day we met new people, met with new experiences and encountered behavior and way of thinking at times foreign to us. For example, sometimes officials declined to meet with us at the level we desired, probably for “political” reasons. They never refused outright, but found all sorts of excuses like the people we want to see are on a trip to the south or abroad or they were sick or other reasons as long as it did not sound like a refusal. We discovered a thing known to experienced people which is that Chinese do not like to say no, and it is advisable not to push them into a corner so as to avoid future embarrassment. At the beginning there were many frustrations. But the friendship exhibited by everyone we met, the warmth radiated in their deeds and words, the daily pleasant surprises, the newness in things we experienced helped us in our efforts and strengthened our spirit. I started to get used to being a diplomat and, to my surprise, I even liked it at least during the first two years.

We initiated two activities which were considered by both us and our Chinese host –The Chinese Academy of Sciences - as important. In April 1991, we convened a bi-national workshop on Water Use Efficiency in Agriculture. Seven top scientists in this field from various universities and institutes in Israel and forty from China presented papers, which were later published in two books - one in Chinese and one in English. The second activity, which was more important than the first was a proposal to establish in China an Israeli training center and a demonstration farm of the most advanced technologies developed in Israel in protected crop cultivation and efficient drip irrigation. We realized from the start that Israel can make significant contributions to Chinese agriculture mainly in intensive crops such as vegetables and flowers in greenhouses. The marketing of high quality produce was still at its infancy, but we realized that as the standard of living improves so will the demand for quality vegetables, fruits and flowers. In this Israel excelled but China was lagging.

We did not succeed in establishing these two centers during our stay, but they were both set up a few years later by my successor in the job, Dr. Sarig in cooperation with Chinese counterparts. They were highly successful in introducing Israel technology and helped Israeli companies to promote their business in China. Many courses were conducted in Beijing and other locations in the country during our stay in the fields of rural development, agriculture and medicine. Many more courses were given in the China Israel International Center for Training in Agriculture (CIICTA) established at the China Agricultural University. The demonstration farm was visited by many of the top leaders of China and some 40,000 farmers from around the country. Today many irrigation, seed, greenhouse and fruit processing companies operate in China.

IAC: How knowledgeable did you find the Chinese business community about Israel when you were stationed there? What type of inquiries did you receive?

Since the Chinese Academy of Sciences had research institutes spread throughout the country, this gave us the opportunity to visit many provinces and spread the fact that the relationship between China and Israel is changing. The widespread interest in Israel's agriculture was amazing - even in remote places. This interest was partially satisfied through the moving courses which we organized for the Department of International Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry (MASHAV). Indeed, China is a vast country, but we still managed to be in many places and promote our interests.

In business in general and in agriculture in particular, Israelis had a very positive image. The Chinese saw in us a combination of Jewish intelligence, commercial expertise and good contacts in the U.S. They appreciated our ability as a small nation surrounded by enemies to develop a thriving economy, especially in agriculture and military industry. The Israeli was not spoiled and was willing and ready to work in remote and inhospitable regions together with his Chinese hosts, and had the ability to improvise when necessary.
 
IAC: What cooperation exists today and where can that be taken in the years ahead?

Israeli trade with China during our stay in the early 90's was quite meager, about 30 million dollars, mainly export from Israel to China. Today the trade size is 4.5 billion USD of which 3.5 billion is import of Chinese products (electronic and electrical appliances, textiles and chemicals) and 1.5 billion export from Israel (hi-tech, medical and optical equipment, chemical and precious stones).

Doubtlessly, the rapid growth of the Chinese economy creates favorable conditions for economic and commercial activities of Israel in China. The rate of increased involvement depends on our ability to identify areas where Israel has a competitive advantage and can compete with large and powerful countries that can provide China more generous credit.

"Our presence gradually instilled into the consciousness of the international community, especially in the Middle East, that the normalization of relations between China and Israel is an irreversible process."