John V. Grobowski, a U.S. lawyer working full time in China's Shanghai since 1991, has been better known in the country by his Chinese name, "Gu Shuji" for the last three decades.

China, a second homeland for Grobowski for a big part of his life, has gone through development in a record pace, as he recalled in an interview with Xinhua.

A LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE

Grobowski was one of the first seven graduate students from the United States to study in the People's Republic of China in a bilateral exchange program when the two countries were in the process of normalizing their diplomatic relations.

The seven participants of the program arrived in Beijing on a cold day in February 1979. Grobowski ended up attending Peking University to study archaeology for three semesters.

He could see that Beijing and Peking University were both undergoing some major changes when he arrived there.

"Beijing was still experiencing some shortages at that time, especially in the winter, when our staple was Chinese cabbage that had been buried under some of the buildings on the campus," he said.

"Most of Beijing closed down very quickly after it got dark, and there were very few lights on by eight o'clock at night. Even drivers would normally turn off their headlights so long as they could see in the dark," he said.

Grobowski said that he took seven courses in archaeology, and that his professors were very scholarly and kind to him, allowing him extra time during examinations to look up words in a dictionary.

During his last semester in the program, he was able to participate in an excavation of a cave site at Kizil in northwestern Xinjiang. "That was a fantastic experience," he said. "But I realized, sadly, that it would be very difficult for me to do anything like that again after I left China."

Looking back to 1979, he said that his stay in China as an exchange student was a turning point for his life. "It led to most of my adult years being spent in China, and I was of course profoundly changed by my time and experiences there," he said.

His time in China has also made him realize that there is a significant difference in the perspective on China after actually spending time there and having direct contact with Chinese people from different walks of life.

He started taking courses in Chinese politics and government as a graduate student at the University of Maryland.

"It has been an interesting experience for me, since I did not take formal courses related to modern China during my student years in the past," he said.

It is his hope that more Americans will have such opportunities for similar long-term stays and experiences in China, and that they will lead to a change in Americans' perspectives on China.

A WITNESS TO CHINA'S OPENING-UP

In the fall of 1980, Grobowski returned to the University of Chicago, but soon found himself eager to get back to China and spend more time there.

"I was paying a lot of attention to what was going on in China and could see that a lot of things were changing," he said. "I saw that American companies were getting interested in the Chinese market or in having some of their production done there, but were finding it very difficult to negotiate deals with the sorts of legal protections that were required by their senior executives and shareholders in the U.S., and I started to think that this situation could lead to some interesting opportunities for an American lawyer who spoke and read Chinese and was knowledgeable about China and Chinese law."

So he changed his major, went on to study law at George Washington University Law School and then worked for a small international trade law firm in Washington, D.C., for several years to gain experience in international trade and investment transactions before joining the Baker McKenzie law firm to work in its Shanghai office in 1991.

He was the only lawyer in that office then. By 2000, he became the co-managing partner of the Shanghai office, which eventually has more than 170 professional and administrative staff.

Three years after his retirement, he and his family left China and moved to Bethesda, Maryland, his hometown in the United States, in 2018.

Grobowski said he has witnessed the opening of China's doors to foreign investors and the comprehensive reforms in its commercial laws as it underwent a dramatic economic and social transformation.

"There have been enormous changes in China's legal system since 1979, and it was successful in creating a legal framework for foreign investment that gave foreign investors the level of comfort they needed to make large investments in China," he said. "For many years, China attracted more foreign investment than any country in the world."

He said that, in addition to China's legal framework for foreign investment, there were some economic reasons for its success in attracting foreign investment, particularly in the manufacturing sector.

"A growing domestic demand for their products in China effectively offsets the higher production costs and maintained or enhanced the profitability of their investments," he said.

Grobowski said he was extremely impressed by the record pace of development in Shanghai and other cities in China. Much of what he saw in 1991 underwent dramatic changes in the following years.

"The pace of development in Shanghai in the 1990s and early 2000s was breathtaking," he said. "The buildings in the Bund area were renovated and occupied by banks, restaurants and upscale shops. Cars replaced most of the bicycles on its streets. Tall bridges and long tunnels were built over and under the Huangpu River to connect Pudong to the rest of the city."

"And, most strikingly, tall office towers, hotels and apartment buildings sprang up like mushrooms all over the city," he said.

A BELIEVER IN ENGAGEMENT

Grobowski said he is a believer in constructive engagement between the United States and China. "The world has quite a few problems that necessitate cooperation between these two important countries. And if that cooperation is not there, I suspect they will get worse," he said, referring to the challenges of climate change, public health and economic growth.

"In the U.S., there is some discomfort over the fact that China has developed so fast, notwithstanding all the differences in its political and economic systems," he said. "I do not share this feeling. China was one of the leading countries in the world in the past, and I have always felt that it was just a question of time before it becomes a leading country again."

"China deserves a lot of credit for some of its accomplishments, like its success in lifting over 700 million people out of poverty during the last four decades, which was in large part due to the ability of the Communist Party of China to marshal and closely coordinate the efforts of central, provincial and local authorities in a long-term campaign," he said.

"I believe that the key to a good relationship between the U.S. and China is continued economic development in both countries, encouraged and sustained by the contributions that they are able to make to each other, which can only be expected to lead to greater and greater interdependence between them."

He thinks that an expansion of educational exchanges and both people-to-people and diplomatic efforts can play an important role in the improvement of bilateral ties.

"Most Americans who spend a significant amount of time in China or in close association with Chinese individuals or groups have a much deeper understanding of how things work in China and accept the prospect of it becoming a powerful country again," he said.