China Wants to Establish L.A. Consulate

China has asked the U.S. government for permission to open a consulate in Los Angeles, U.S. officials here said Thursday.

Under an existing consular agreement, China was supposed to open its fifth consulate in the United States in Honolulu in 1986. But a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy here said China requested permission Tuesday to change its plans and delay opening a Honolulu consulate so that it can have one in Los Angeles instead.

If the United States approves the request, residents of Southern California will be able to obtain visas for travel and seek assistance for business dealings in China directly from the Los Angeles consulate. Presently, the Chinese consulate nearest Los Angeles is in San Francisco.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said no formal request had been received from the Chinese, but added: “If such a request were received, we would give it favorable consideration.”

If there are no delays, the consulate could reportedly open as early as next year. U.S. Embassy officials were unable to say Thursday exactly when the United States will act on the Chinese request.

“Los Angeles is becoming increasingly important to us, both because of its economic importance and because of its large Chinese community,” explained one Chinese official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used.

Chinese citizens instantly link Los Angeles with the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. The Games also appear to have made Chinese officials more aware of the physical and cultural distances between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The United States and China have agreed that each country will be allowed to open five consulates on each other’s soil, with each nation opening the new offices at about the same time.

3 Consulates in U.S.

China now has three consulates in the United States--in New York City, San Francisco and Houston--in addition to its embassy in Washington. There are U.S. consulates in Shanghai, Canton and Shenyang, in addition to the embassy in Peking.

China is opening its fourth consulate later this year in Chicago, and the United States will establish an office in Chengdu, Sichuan, the most populous Chinese province.

The agreement originally called for one final pair of consulates to be opened next year in Wuhan and in Honolulu. After that, there are no provisions for any new consulates, and one U.S. source said it is not clear whether or when the United States will want additional offices in China after the original five.

Officially, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to answer questions about its action.

“With regard to the question of setting up a Chinese consulate general in Los Angeles, the Chinese and American sides are in consultation with each other,” a ministry spokesman said.

In Los Angeles, community leaders were pleased with the Chinese request, saying a consulate would enhance business opportunities for Southern California companies wanting to trade with China.

Seen as Business Hub

They cited both the region’s emergence as the primary West Coast business hub and its large population of ethnic Chinese as incentives for placing a consulate in Los Angeles.

Said David Fon Lee, a prominent businessman in Los Angeles’ Chinatown: “I think the Chinese government is seeing the progress of Los Angeles.”

“I do feel we should have the Chinese consulate here in Los Angeles,” said Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson, vice chairwoman of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, “what with the amount of business we are already doing within cities and countries within the Pacific Rim.”

Like others interviewed, Ahmanson, who also chairs Los Angeles’ sister city association with Canton, said the 1984 Summer Olympics played a significant role in convincing the Chinese to attempt to establish their next consulate in Southern California, instead of Honolulu. China’s participation in the Games marked the first time the country had fielded an Olympic team since 1932.

They said that before the Games, some Chinese had been under the impression that Los Angeles still was eclipsed by San Francisco as a West Coast trade center, as it had been when diplomatic relations between the United States and China were broken after the Communists came to power in Peking in 1949. Relations were restored in 1979.

Impact of Olympics

“I think it showed them all . . . how important Los Angeles now is in the scheme of the major cities of the world,” Ahmanson said of the Olympics.

Charlotte Asberry, deputy chief of protocol for Los Angeles, said the city had lobbied the Chinese to request a consulate in Los Angeles. She called the request “interesting and very exciting news for us.”

A spokesman for the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, Taiwan’s quasi-official diplomatic mission to the United States, said the group had no comment on the matter.

Times staff writer Peter H. King in Los Angeles contributed to this article