Midwestern U.S. city mayor eyes rebuilding strong economic partnership with China

NEW YORK, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Detroit, the largest city in the midwestern U.S. state of Michigan, is "very anxious" to rebuild "a strong economic partnership with the Chinese economies," the city's mayor has said.

"Our relationship with the Chinese is something that needs to be restarted. It was something I placed a high priority on when I got elected," said Michael E. Duggan, who was re-elected as the mayor of Detroit in 2021, in response to a question by Xinhua at a recent Zoom briefing on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Transportation and Trade Ministerial Meetings.

Duggan recalled his visit to China on a trade mission about six years ago.

"And we in particular were partnering with the city of Shenzhen. The leadership -- both the mayor and the party leader -- came here to Michigan, and we talked about building a sister city relationship," he said.

During his visit to China, Duggan said, he visited Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and spent a lot of time with "15 or 20 leaders of manufacturing in China."

The next year the leaders of Shenzhen came back to Detroit and the two sides signed a friendship agreement, "which is one step short of a formal sister city relationship, and we had a number of cultural exchanges with Shenzhen," said Duggan.

"I'm very anxious for us to get back to that and go back to building a strong economic partnership with the Chinese economies," said Duggan.