Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will lead a trade mission to China in October, state economic development officials announced Friday, a trip that will give him a chance to use his fluency in Mandarin Chinese to sell the state.

The five-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai will be Huntsman's third foreign trip since he took office almost two years ago. In July 2005, he traveled to Mexico City to meet with outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox.

The governor has also traveled to the Middle East with a delegation headed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The purpose of the four-day visit to the region in March was to visit troops in Iraq and meet with U.S. and Iraqi officials about the ongoing war.

His trip to China will focus on trade, but will also include attempts to develop cultural and educational ties between China and Utah, according to his senior adviser for economic development, Chris Roybal.

"There's going to be an education component and a cultural component" to the trade mission still in the planning stages, Roybal said. "The governor is serious about this three-pronged approach in the four countries we've targeted," Mexico, China, India and Canada.

Huntsman's Mexico trip focused on establishing an economic, educational and cultural alliance with that country but also ended up launching Huntsman's successful effort to get other Western governors to support a resolution on illegal immigration.

Fox also came to Utah in May as a result of Huntsman's trip to Mexico, where the Mexican president encouraged further exchanges with his country. Just a month earlier, the Governor's Office of Economic Development had led a separate trade mission to Mexico, and another is planned.

About 15 companies will be selected to participate at their own expense in the China trip, Roybal said. The deadline for applying is July 21, and applications are available by contacting the office's Adam Walden at awalden@utah.gov.

Last month, the office's Asia director, Brett Heimburger, went to Beijing and Shanghai in preparation for the trip along with representatives of four Utah-based companies, International Automated Systems, Cermatec, NuSkin and Tahitian Noni.

Heimburger said he's excited about the prospect of going back with a governor who speaks the language fluently and has spent time in China. "You get the attention however you can get it," he said.

Huntsman speaks the Chinese dialect of Mandarin fluently, a skill that helps set Utah apart from other states that are sending trade missions to China, Roybal said. Huntsman learned the language as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taiwan.

Plus, Roybal said, the governor knows the region as a result of having served as a U.S. trade representative in Asia and as U.S. ambassador to Singapore. At one time, Huntsman was considered a candidate to serve as U.S. ambassador to China.

"It's really a multiplier effect," Roybal said. "There are many governors and many states who travel to places like China, but we have a governor, it's fair to say, who has more expertise in that market than any other governor in the country."

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