I had a dream - the WTO column

(Next week in Chinabiz)

Well, it was more a kind of nightmare.
I recognized the hall I was in vaguely from what I had seen on TV in the US. I most certainly recognized the TV-lights that did put the Congressional hearing I was attending as a witness in the spotlight. From some of the pictures at the wall I concluded that John Kerry was president. So it must be 2005, or maybe a couple of years later. Next to me was sitting a lawyer of a larger US law firm, whose task it was to help me.
“Better confess, you are guilty,” he advised me beforehand.

The chairman of the committee waved with a paper. “What do you know about this donation to the fund to elect John Kerry as our president,” he asked. I checked the paper. It was a donation from the Queen Wilhelmina Fund of 373 US dollar, transferred to John Kerry’s elections fund from Hong kong. “We think it is an illegal donation from China.

I could vaguely remember that Fund and that amount of money. In the summer of 2004 the documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” of Michael Moore had hit the US cinema’s and with a group of people we got together to watch the movie in Sasha’s, the regular drinking hole of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club.”
“That was an illegal gathering, wasn’t it,” asked the chairman. “Well, it was maybe not a legal meeting, but I would not call an illegal meeting,” I tried. “It was more a get-together of 49 of my friends.”
“Better admit, you’re guilty,” said my lawyer. “Do not make your answers too complicated.”
“And you have been watching an illegal copy of the movie at that illegal meeting, isn’t it,” said the chairman, whose head had turned slightly red. “And then you invented the Queen Wilhelmina Fund to disguise the true destination of the money.”
“Well, we only decided later what to do with the money,” I tried.
“And then you illegally move the capital from Shanghai to Hong Kong.” The chairman exploded. “It was only very little money,” I tried.
“Better do not make your story too complicated,” my legal advisor suggested, before I could continue. “He will not get that story about the suitcases anyway.”

That moment my phone went and brought me back to my apartment in Xujiahui and the steamy summer of 2004. “I’m looking for a solid company in China that needs at least twenty million US dollar,” a friend from Hong Kong told me over the phone. I could use that but estimated I would not be considered to be solid enough. “Can’t we settle for a little bit less money?” I tried. “I will check with New York and call you back after the weekend.” I put down the phone.

I desperately tried to get back to my nightmare, but another day had started in Shanghai.