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BEIJING -- During his final few days in China, Ambassador Jon Huntsman is trying to help fortify Utah's trade ties with the country.
We'll have much more from that our extended interview with Ambassador John Huntsman, including his thoughts on his political future.
"We're going to have a lot of opportunities as a country in terms of job creation and economic opportunities, so it's actually pretty timely that the Utah delegation is over here furthering the relationship, building and looking at new market opportunities, export opportunities, because this will be America's largest export market in short order," Huntsman told KSL News.
The ambassador said he's seen the promise and the problems caused by China's rapid economic rise. Some of the most severe problems come from one of the sources of China's economic strength: it's huge population of 1.3 billion, which brings with it notorious air pollution.
What's more, 50 percent of China's water is undrinkable, and 20 percent is so polluted you can't use it for commercial uses.
"It's a poor country. They have a lot of environmental challenges. What they've done is they've identified a pathway forward in dealing with a lot of their environmental challenges, and they're appropriating huge sums of money," Huntsman said. "We're talking about literally hundreds of billions of dollars to go after solar projects, to go after wind projects; nuclear energy is going to be a big part of that."
Those environmental challenges are what the Utah delegation of government and business leaders are hoping to capitalize on with this China trip.
Email: jdaley@ksl.com
