In new China panel post, Bond to promote STL cargo hub
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
December 10, 2009
by Bill Lambrecht
It's taken awhile for St. Louisans and the Chinese to get to know one another, and many in the region hope that a two-year flirtation has St. Louis in line to win China's Midwest cargo hub at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
If close ties are the ticket to winning the project, Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond may have advanced the cause by gaining a new Washington position as vice chairman of the U.S. China Interparliamentary Exchange Group.
Bond, R-Mo., planned to announce his selection at a dinner at the Chinese Embassy in Washington tonight. Gov. Jay Nixon, Sen. Claire McCaskill and most of Missouri's congressional delegation from the region planned to attend.
Bond also confirmed to STLtoday that he and the chair of the 12-member panel, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., plan to travel to China on Jan. 13 in connection with the exchange group.
"It won't be solely about the hub, but it will be a great opportunity to talk with people," Bond said in an interview this afternoon.
The ten-year-old, congressionally mandated exchange group serves as the entity connecting the Senate and the Chinese government. U.S. senators travel there and their Chinese counterparts visit the United States in hopes of promoting understanding and dialogue between the two nations often described as the most most important on earth.
Bond said that he will have discussions during his January trip about what the St. Louis region can offer China and hold meetings before that about remaining obstacles to securing the airport hub.
"China is overwhelmingly the emerging market where we need to be able to sell," he said.
He observed that the St. Louis region has a host of products -- from farm goods to high-tech exports -- that could be regularly moving to China from the proposed hub in planes that carried Chinese goods to the Midwest.
China thus far has been skeptical about whether the hub would be economically feasible.
"We've got to develop the information they need on back-hauls," Bond said. "They're not going to send planes here and have them going back half or two-thirds empty.
Bond said that Missouri interests intend to refine their pitch in hopes of getting an agreement from the Chinese so that construction could begin soon at the airport enabling direct flights to begin a year from now.
