From May 19th to 20th, Vice President Xie Yuan led a delegation to visit the State of Minnesota in the United States.

On May 20th, Vice President Xie Yuan had a meeting with Governor Mark Dayton in St. Paul, capital of Minnesota. VP Xie extended a formal invitation to Governor Dayton to attend the Fourth China-US Governors Forum to be held in Chengdu this August, and expressed the wishes that the governor will give continuous support in promoting the exchanges between the State of Minnesota and China’s local governments, provincial people’s congress and other fields.

Governor Dayton addressed his great importance attached to the Minnesota’s relations with China and he had visited China for eight times. Though it looked very dim for him to visit China this year due to the presidential election, he will continue to promote mutual exchanges and seek an opportunity to pay another visit in 2017 or 2018. 

On the same day, Vice President Xie Yuan attended the spring meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) where he gave a speech on China’s demographic situation and pension policies at NCSL’s invitation. He pointed out that China has established a multi-level pension service system based on households, communities and institutions with a combination of medicare and pension. In order to solve the issue of aging population, China has implemented the second-child policy across the country. In addition, China will lower its social security fees, postpone retiring age and open its pension service market in the future to fulfill the diversified requests by the elderly.

NCSL’s President, Utah Senate President Pro Tempore Curtis Bramble thanked VP Xie’s attending the meeting and making a speech. Sen. Bramble said that under the CPAFFC’s support, the two organizations have enjoyed more and more cooperation and mutual visits. The First China-U.S. Sub-national Legislatures Cooperation Forum which CPAFFC is going to host in Honolulu, Hawaii, in June this year will become an important platform for cooperation between the two countries’ subnational legislatures. The NCSL will help promote further exchanges and cooperation between the two sides.

During the visit, VP Xie also met with Utah Senator Sandy Pappas, Utah House Majority Leader, Representative Joyce Peppin and seven other Utah legislators, as well as Mrs. Barbara Harrison, former president of the US-China People’s Friendship Association, and the organization’s Minnesota Chairman Ralph Beha.