Chinese leaders were determined to make the agreed deal work. They consulted widely. In the years leading up to 1997 I met with top leaders several times a year, both as a governor of the American Chamber of Commerce and—more often and more significantly—as chair of the Economic Committee of the Business and Professionals Federation, a group of top Hong Kong business leaders that had helped write Hong Kong’s constitutional document, the Basic Law. China’s leaders were accessible and eagerly sought advice from foreigners, and particularly from Hong Kong Chinese business leaders, whom they regarded as the authoritative experts on Hong Kong. Our conversations were quite wide-ranging. Zhu Rongji, then vice premier, was always the most impressive because he was so open. Fully in control of his own ego, he welcomed criticism and answered delicate political questions with humorous alacrity.