Transcript of the Interview with Handel Lee (李景汉) China Boom Project, Asia Society 2009 Handel Lee (李景汉) Partner of King & Wood law firm Industry: Business Handel Lee, based in Beijing, is a Partner at King & Wood, the largest law firm in mainland China. He is also the entrepreneur and art collector behind projects such as “Three on the Bund” in Shanghai, a lifestyle complex that includes fine dining restaurants such as Jean-Georges, a contemporary art center, and luxury retail shopping, and “The Courtyard” in Beijing, a restaurant and China’s first independent contemporary art gallery. Lee is a distinguished lawyer, and is often cited in various legal, trade, and news media, including the International Financial Law Review, Asian Law and Practice, The Wall Street Journal, The South China Morning Post, and The China Business Review. Lee received a BA from the University of Virginia and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. ----------------------------------- Transcript Interviewee: Handel Lee (李景汉) Interviewer: John Delury Date: June 2, 3, 2009 Place: Shanghai (China) John opens and asks for introduction. HL: 00:50: Well, I um, came to China in 82 and spent half a year at Beijing University. And 82 certainly was a very interesting time to be in China to, to see, to see uh, the newly opened China. The opening was in 79, so in 82 having time to be here for half a year, it kind of saw that… the start of the change. Well importantly, felt, felt the change, especially sitting down, talking to people, there was just incredible exuberance. Uh, very fresh, and very, very optimistic. Uh, a little bit cautious then, but still just incredibly fresh, almost naïve exuberance, that, that was, was coming out. Uh, in 1991, I moved here, uh, to Beijing to open up (incomprehensible) office and I’ve been resident in China, in Beijing ever since 1 1991. Uh, certainly back in 1991, uh, in the, relatively speaking, was still very early in, in China’s uh, development to where it is now… The 1990s were critical years when, when a lot of the fundamental infrastructures or institutionalization of concepts, and of policies, began, and… began, and started to take root. Uh, actually, the… a lot of this started happening obviously in the 1980s, but really done in 1990s, mid-90s they really started taking hold. 02:23: Uh, I recall that, you know I started representing, as a lawyer started representing Chinese banks and companies, starting in 1988-89, and after Tiananmen happened… a lot of people pulled out of China, and in fact even a lot of my friends, ah, were very critical of me continuing to do work, representing Chinese companies. What they didn’t understand was that this was very, very important work… ground-laying work, which, which, in the long term, pushing China forward. And I remember I would try to explain to my friends, and other colleagues, saying, this is work that has to be done. Tiananmen is one incident that happened. We’re talking about some fundamental changes going on, and as a law firm, and as lawyers, we can be a very, very positive part of what’s going on in China, the change, and, and really, building, building this infrastructure of change, conceptually, system-wise, as well as, well, as, well as physically, but really we’re talking about institutional changes, and, and the systems. Uh, and… I remember having to go to great lengths trying to convince people that this was still the right thing to do. Uh, especially after Tiananmen, and especially in the early 1990s when everybody pulled out, um. But we see now today, uh, the, you know, what’s going on in China, but it’s been a 25-year plan to get to where, where China is today, and it involved a great deal of fundamental, basic reconstruction of, of conceptually what, what, China and the, and the political, and policy, uh planners are doing here. 04:17: Uh, people ask me all the time, what is the biggest change in China you’ve seen over the years? And, you know, obviously the natural response is well, there’s so many rich people now, there’s so many incredible buildings, and… everybody’s making money. Actually, the biggest change, the biggest change, is conceptually. The concept, the way of thinking here, has changed. Uh, being here in the early 1980s, 1982, you talk to kids, in the universities, you ask them, what do you want to do when, for a career eventually. They, most of them really didn’t have a concept. They said, well, wherever we get assigned. Uh, you talk to, you talk to kids in elementary school and junior high, you says what do you want do when you grow up. And most of them would, they would draw a blank and say, well, we really never did think about that. I remember having a conversation with a couple of kids and they started crying, because you, when you start pushing them on, well, what is, you know, where, what is your dream, and… they kind of hit a roadblock. In their mind. But that has all, that has changed. That has changed by a 180 degrees. That’s changed now. 05:28: Uh, the freedom of opportunity. 19, early 1980s, even 1990s, you know, there was no opportunity. Opportunities for… development, individually, for business, was, was very restricted. Very, very restricted. There was… you couldn’t just go out and try to find a job or start a business, and that was an alien concept. Today. The freedom of opportunity, if you have a good idea, you got a little bit of money, and a lot of hutzpah, heart, determination, you can make it happen. That’s what’s crazy about China today, is that that 2 perhaps, you know, the doors are wide open in terms of… opportunity. Now especially economic and business-wise. Now obviously in the political area it’s a little bit different, but, this is, this is where it all begins. This is where it all begins. In effect, it goes, it’s probably, even deeper. Listen, Western concepts of democracy is based on economic freedom and economic status actually. That’s, that’s where it came, and that is its infrastructure, uh, so that it is really what it is, this type of change, uh, and conceptual change, uh, is happening in China. To protect my economic gains, my economic livelihood, that’s why I need political, political protections, that’s, that’s where it comes from. So, so, uh, I think what’s going on here in China is, is, is incredible and to be a witness, to be here over the past 18 years, living here, uh, and working here and hopefully contributing to this change, has been, has been ah… a wonderful experience. John: 07:08: Tell us more, or the future historians more, about, you got started in the world of, in the legal world, uh, and then you’ve done a lot of things in investment, in the art boom, in the restaurant boom, in the real estate boom, tell us more about that in the 90s and then into the 2000s, what you’ve seen, and again what you see driving all of it in your experience. HL: 07:31: Well, the, there’s an art boom, and there’s a real estate boom, a restaurant boom now, but when I started doing the art, uh, I started collecting when I came here in 91. I opened up an art gallery in 1995; I lost money for the first 8-9 years I did the art gallery, so there was no boom back then. But the thought was that, there was this great new expression of, of, contemporary society. Manifested in this artwork, this avant-garde artwork, experimental. But it was not allowed to, it was not allowed to be shown in China. It wasn’t seen, and… you know, much more, nobody in China was really that interested. Except for a very small circle of artists and academics. But, but it was such a strong, fresh expression, very powerful, that… I felt that it needed to be, be given a… very dignified stage, a public stage upon which the people in China could see it and get close to it. And then, and then maybe either accept it, talk about it, debate it, or reject it, but this had to be put into the public arena. Visually, conceptually, it had to be done, and back in 199-, the early 90s, well 1980s and early 90s, it wasn’t allowed to be shown. It was starting to be collected abroad, and you could see, you know, in Hong Kong, in New York, in London, Switzerland, some of the more exciting and more interesting work, but that, but that was, you had collectors who thought it was, felt the same way I did, from Europe and America, but really a lot of that was commercial-oriented. Uh, importantly, it was to see the artwork, give it the, give it its, a presence and a dignity so it could be seen and then affect the contemporary culture of China. 09:31: A lot of it has to do with, there’s very little, especially back then, that was… very few art forms. Uh, that really could uh, enunciate what was going on, the changes. Ah? And, and, it was very difficult stuff that was going on in China, social changes, political changes, everything, and it’s still going on.