China Travel Safe Again, Official Says

A railroad worker who rose to become a high-ranking Chinese tourism official hopes to patch his country’s tattered image in the wake of the violent crackdown on student protesters in Tian An Men Square.

“China needs to understand the world and the world needs to understand China,” said Xi Zhenhuan, deputy general manager of China Swan International Tours of Beijing.

Xi, who carries a generous supply of lapel pins of the crossed flags of China and the United States, said the Chinese are becoming increasingly aware of the power that their country carries.

“A country of more than 1 billion people has to do something for the world,” he said.

“Travel is a very good way for people to understand one another and develop social contacts,” said Xi, flashing a broad smile. “I have friends all over the world.”

Xi has been working to open China up to foreign tourists for more than a quarter century, long before the first Americans were allowed behind what was then called the Bamboo Curtain.

Xi, 57, came to California to appear at half a dozen seminars organized by an American travel wholesaler, World Travel Consultants Inc. of Glendale. Speaking through a translator, he assured the audiences of retail travel agents that the climate in China has calmed and that foreigners are welcome.

Tourists have been able to do pretty much as they please since “the June 4 incident,” he said.

Xi is China’s highest-level travel industry official to be dispatched to the United States since students and others demanding democratic reforms were shot and killed in Beijing and other cities this past summer.

“I don’t think that tourists have had any problems since (the crackdown),” Xi said.