BEIJING — Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. kicked off his weeklong trade mission in the land known as the Middle Kingdom today with back-to-back meetings with U.S. and Chinese officials, including one of the toughest negotiators he's ever faced.

"Ma is my old counterpart when I was a trade negotiator," the governor said of the vice minister of China's Ministry of Commerce, Madame Ma Xiuhong. "She is very good, very smart and very savvy."

Huntsman told the Deseret Morning News shortly before the meeting at the Ministry of Commerce that he used to sit across the bargaining table from Ma as a U.S. trade representative in the early days of President Bush's administration.

"She was not going to give in," the governor recalled about talks between the two governments on a variety of trade agreements, including the country's entry into the World Trade Organization, better known as the WTO.

Times have changed.

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"I'm gladly not on the market-opening side any longer. I used to visit Beijing with a crowbar in my pocket," Huntsman said. "Now I find myself on the trade-partner side."

The governor is leading a delegation of representatives of 19 Utah businesses and educational institutions to Beijing and, later this week, to Shanghai, to encourage additional trade with China as well as educational and cultural exchanges.

The schedule for Huntsman's visit was still being finalized just hours before he met privately with U.S. Ambassador Sandy Randt over breakfast this morning. Randt was to be the guest of honor at a lunch reception later in the day. (China is 14 hours ahead of Utah.)

"This is how the game is played here," said Brett Heimburger, Asia director for the governor's office of economic development. "Everything's in flux."

Added to Huntsman's agenda for today is time with the vice chairman of the National People's Congress, Cheng Si-wei, at the Great Hall of the People. It's rare for an American governor to sit down with a leader of the legislative arm of the People's Republic of China, Heimburger said.

"Just about any other governor, maybe with the exception of (California Gov.) Arnold Schwarzenegger for different reasons, probably wouldn't be able to get these meetings," Heimburger said.