China does business a little differently than the U.S. but we track results in the same way:  the value of deals and the number of jobs created.

Hu Jintao’s State Visit from January 18-21 may have been a dog-and-pony show on a big stage but it did register some big results at the box-office.

Having worked in the trenches of the U.S.-Japan trade war in the early 1990s, I know full well that the numbers trotted out in press statements for Presidential events need to be taken with a grain of salt.  Notwithstanding, the underlying facts they describe have a reality.  Yes, there was some degree of smoke and mirrors involved in the numbers announced with the original U.S.-Japan Auto Trade Agreement in 1992.  Nonetheless,  those numbers pointed to real changes which seem commonplace today — there’s no longer a trade war with Japan, U.S. consumers have better cars, Toyota sponsors the Super Bowl, and Japan’s economy proved far less able to overtake the U.S. than many had supposed.

All of this suggests that we shouldn’t sneeze at US $50 billion in trade deals announced during the Hu Jintao State Visit.  Also, that grain of salt may perhaps be better applied to the growing perception that China owns the future.

AEP, AES, Aloca, Duke, Ener1, GE and UPC racked up more than $12.5 billion in trade, investment and project deals over the past four days.  This bodes well for the future of U.S.-China clean energy cooperation.  The guts of these seven deals show that the U.S. provides innovation and China provides a huge market.  That basically represents a fair deal for both sides.

Click here or directly on the slide thumbnail below to access the slide-master with links to full details of each of these seven deals: