ROBERT Griffiths is not a stranger to Shanghai. But when he set foot in the city this time, he considered himself the luckiest among many diplomats because of his job.

He is the 35th consul general of the United States in the Chinese financial hub since 1844.

"I am the envy of many foreign service officers," said Griffiths. "I believe that this is the best job in all of Asia."

The Shanghai position is another milestone in the career of the veteran American diplomat who has been in the foreign service for 28 years, mostly in Asia. His previous Shanghai posting was from 1997-2000 when he headed the economic and political section of the consulate. From 2003-2007 he was in the political section of the US Embassy in Beijing.

Inspired by a distant relative who was in the foreign service, Nevada state native Griffiths dreamed about being a diplomat since he was a teenager.

Early years of living in Japan and later missionary work in Thailand at the age of 19 cemented the ambitions of the young Asia-phile who then decided Asia, specifically China, would be his foreign service career path.

"My Mongolian political science professor once told us that if we were going to learn any Asian political thought, there's one thing worth learning," Griffiths said.

"That is the Chinese political thought from more than 2,000 years ago. Then I knew I had to learn Chinese."

In fact, he learned more than the language spoken by the world's biggest population. He also learned the wisdom of Confucius, Lao Tzu and Mencius - philosophies still rooted deeply in China's psyche.

Now, as the top US diplomat in Shanghai and eastern China, the American has the chance to use some Chinese wisdom and American savvy to address some problems between the world's two largest economies.

For instance, misunderstanding of the other side.

"There's a fear among some Americans that China is taking their jobs away, given the fact that America is now going through a very difficult time and the unemployment rate is so high," Griffiths said.

"But I don't think that is true. There are many problems that need to be dealt with to resolve the economic recession," Griffiths said. "The prosperity of China is not a threat to the prosperity of the US," he emphasized. "Quite the opposite."

"We welcome a strong and prosperous China that will be more engaged with the world," he said.

To allow more Chinese to see the United States for themselves is a good way to help clear up misunderstandings (and vice versa), but that may lead to a practical problem Griffiths considers the biggest challenge in his new job.

"We have more people who want visas than we can provide in a timely manner and there are often long lines outside our office at the West Gate Mall where people have to wait for hours," Griffiths said. "We don't like that at all and we're trying to fix the problem," he said.

In 2010, 238,917 Chinese applied for non-immigrant visas, a 42 percent increase over the previous year. Shanghai is the fourth-largest visa issuing post in the world, after Sao Paolo, Brazil; Beijing and Bogota, Colombia.

In the past 12 months alone, the Shanghai consular section processed more than 260,000 visas.

The US consulate has been trying to build a new consulate in Shanghai for years, a proposal Griffiths said he raised during his first call with Vice Mayor Tu Guangshao, who replied that the Shanghai leadership is trying to find a solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, Griffiths pledged that his team is trying to expand operations at the West Gate Mall so visas can be processed more quickly.

"We're anxious to be able to provide services to the people in Shanghai and eastern China that are equal to the kind of high-class international city that Shanghai has become," Griffiths said.

Trade is another field where the Chinese and Americans could put aside differences and focus more on what they have in common, he said.

US-China bilateral trade in 2010 was valued at US$456.8 billion, an increase of almost 24.8 percent from 2009, according to the US Department of Commerce.

"There are some companies in American which don't understand China very well," Griffiths said. "So we are trying to do programs that will increase the interaction between Chinese and American companies.

"In particular, in the past, many Americans have invested in China and now China's economy is doing so well that we think there are opportunities for Chinese to invest in the United States, which will be a win-win situation for both sides," Griffiths said.

The consulate in Shanghai is promoting a couple of new programs, one of which is called Select-USA. It aims to help confused Chinese investors find very detailed incentive programs online in each of the America's 50 states.

Prospective investors then can compare and decide which would be the best place to go to invest.

Apart from promoting bilateral trade, Griffiths is particularly interested in increasing people-to-people relations, especially having more Chinese going to America to study and more Americans coming to study in China.

Citing the strategic importance of the US-China relationship, in November 2009, President Barack Obama announced the "100,000 Strong" initiative, a national effort designed to increase dramatically the number and diversification of American students studying in China.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the initiative in May 2010 in Beijing. The Chinese government strongly supports the initiative and has already committed 10,000 "Bridge scholarships" for American students to study in China.

Chinese students in the US during 2009-2010 numbered 127,628, an increase of almost 30 percent from the previous year.

Interest in China is also on the rise among Americans.

The number of Americans studying in China grew 30 percent annually from 2001-2007, and the US Department of State said on its website that it expects those numbers to continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

"Going abroad and seeing for yourself is what I did when I was young," Griffiths recalled. "That has made the biggest difference in my life."

US by numbers

238,917

In 2010, 238,917 Chinese applied for non-immigrant visas, a 42 percent increase over the previous year.

4th

Shanghai is the fourth-largest visa issuing post in the world, after Sao Paolo, Brazil; Beijing and Bogota, Colombia. In the past 12 months alone, the Shanghai consular section processed more than 260,000 visas.

US$456.8 billion

US-China bilateral trade in 2010 was valued at US$456.8 billion, an increase of almost 24.8 percent from 2009, according to the US Department of Commerce.

30%

Chinese students in the US during 2009-2010 numbered 127,628, an increase of almost 30 percent from the previous year.