2005 FHWA/AASHTO China Mission

The FHWA and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) organized a high level delegation to visit China during April 19 - 29, 2005. The delegation was led by FHWA Administrator Mary Peters and included senior-level officials from FHWA and several State departments of transportation. The goal of the visit was to establish a mechanism for information exchange and collaboration between DOT/AASHTO and the Ministry of Communications as well as other Chinese organizations/entities. In addition, through this visit, USDOT and AASHTO focused on gaining a better understanding of current initiatives, policies and issues related to highway development and financing. The U.S. delegation visited the cities of Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai.

The delegation included a report facilitator, whose role it was to document the mission and summarize the delegation's observations and findings. The report, entitled "Report on the 2005 FHWA and AASHTYO Visit to China" is available through AASHTO.

The visit was highly successful in achieving the objectives of improving professional relations and knowledge sharing with China's Ministry of Communications (MOC) and China's transportation sector. Specifically, FHWA and China's MOC have formally identified five specific focus areas for collaboration, knowledge sharing and professional exchange. These areas include the following:

• highway safety;
• pavement design;
• environmentally sensitive highway design, including drainage and storm water management;
• commercial vehicle size and weight regulation and enforcement;
• asset management, life cycle cost analysis and public-private partnership strategies in construction, maintenance and operations.

FHWA considers cooperation with China a high priority and would like to work closely with China's MOC and interested Chinese Provinces to advance these issues. Both FHWA and MOC have identified their respective contacts with expertise in each area to work together to develop mutually agreeable objectives and work plans.