For Many Entrepreneurs, China Has Become Land of Opportunity

Armed with a wall map of China, a hefty supply of high-gloss promotional packets and a lifetime of connections, Monterey Park businessman Shane Wang talks up the mainland’s rapidly developing Yangtze River Valley to dozens of potential investors.

In the City of Industry, rows of automotive tools, from hydraulic jacks to wrenches, cram Jefferson and Cindy Lee’s 62,000-square-foot warehouse, all stamped “Made in China” and poised for sale to major U.S. outlets.

And on a recent trip to Beijing, Monterey Park businesswoman Helen Koo waits in line for hours with hundreds of Chinese to get in the door of the California Beef Noodle Shop, only to discover that the owner of the popular fast-food noodle joint is Koo’s neighbor back home--a Taiwan native from Alhambra.

“Most every Chinese person I know, they’re going to China to do business,” said Koo, who lives in Arcadia and is president of America Asia Travel Center Inc. in Monterey Park.

In fact, Koo said her employees crank out 50 airline tickets daily for San Gabriel Valley Chinese-Americans traveling to China to nurture new business ventures.

All have one thing in common: a serious case of “mainland fever,” as the investment itch is known in Taiwan.

China’s lure: cheap labor, 1.2 billion consumers and a new openness to capitalist business practices.

While entrepreneurs all over the United States are eyeing China’s burgeoning economy as a potential gold mine, none are better poised to take advantage of mainland investment than local Chinese-Americans, many of them living and working in the San Gabriel Valley.

Already familiar with the language and culture, and often having longtime business and family ties on the mainland, doors are opening for some entrepreneurs, who are pulling in millions. Meanwhile, their non-Chinese counterparts can’t find the door.

San Gabriel Valley entrepreneurs’ mainland projects run the gamut from investments in China’s commercial real estate to majority ownership of plants that manufacture everything from suitcases to furniture and fertilizer. Entrepreneurs are also exporting used medical equipment and cellular phones to China, and importing everything from computer parts and bicycles to automotive tools for distribution here.

Many of the investors seeking business deals in China are the same people who brought their investment dollars and business acumen from Taiwan to the San Gabriel Valley in an immigration wave that began more than 20 years ago.

“Times have changed,” said Ed Wong, president of the Monterey Park Rotary Club, who began doing business with China 14 years ago in the garment industry. Wong also brokers China-made consumer goods in international markets and sells building materials and medical equipment to China.

“(The) Taiwanese have made the San Gabriel Valley very prosperous. With the opening of the Chinese market, a lot of these Taiwanese, they all go back, not to Taiwan, but to China. They all go to China and make business.”

Inside the Chinese community here, doing business with China is nothing short of a craze.

“A lot of the local business persons are gone for long periods of time,” said Monterey Park City Councilwoman Judy Chu. “Before, they used to be involved in local investment opportunities. Now, when you ask them, ‘Where have you been?’ they invariably say, ‘China.’ ”

When Chu recently approached the owner of Monterey Park’s Ocean Star Seafood Restaurant to find out where he had been, she learned he was setting up a restaurant in Shanghai. Another prominent community businessman who works in construction turned out to be the builder on the project, she said.

And on Tuesday, Monterey Park adopted Quanzhou, China, as a sister city, another sign of the Chinese community’s shifting attentions, Chu added.

“This reflects the change,” Chu said. “We started a sister city with Taiwan 12 years ago. In the early days, Monterey Park was dominated by people from Taiwan. Now you have so much investment in China. I see potential benefits, not just culturally, but in terms of commerce and trade.”

For Danny Y. Joe, 47, a communications engineer from Hacienda Heights, the downturn in the California economy led him to seek opportunity elsewhere.

Since Joe was laid off from Hughes Aircraft last October, he has been selling Motorola pagers, cellular phones and two-way radio systems to customers in China, from police stations to airports, city agencies and private construction companies.

“It’s not easy, but the Chinese market is a very big market. I have been in business one year, and my sales are topping $8 million already,” said Joe, born on the mainland and raised in Taiwan before moving to the United States 23 years ago. “I’m Chinese, so I like to help the Chinese people. I’m also an American, so I like to help the American economy.”

Like Joe, other Chinese-Americans find China more tempting than pounding the pavement for work in a shrinking job market.

Armed with a UCLA degree in mathematics and strong China contacts, Kay Chen became director of B & K China Trading Inc. in La Puente two years ago.

Chen, 28, who came from China, paired up with a partner who has 10 years of experience doing business with China. The result: a rapidly growing business that Chen says expands every few months to include new ventures.

“It’s going very fast,” Chen said, listing off B & K’s various projects: There’s a printing plant, a fertilizer manufacturing plant, auto repair, computer manufacturing and real estate investment. Most of the projects are joint ventures with the government of China, which in many cases has offered foreigners majority ownership and leeway in management practices.

Early this year, B & K also began selling medical equipment from all over the United States to Chinese hospitals, Chen said. Eventually, they hope to become a major distributor for Chinese computer components here, she added.

“We are going crazy because China is growing like crazy,” Chen said.

Others are casting themselves in the role of middleman, hoping to use their contacts and business skills to bridge the gap between California business and the mainland, and educate business people here about China’s business culture.

Last year, Chinese officials appointed Shane Wang, president of Accord Investment & Realty Inc. in Monterey Park and chairman of Monterey Park’s Chase Continental Bankcorp Inc., as an overseas recruiter of foreign investment for a development project in the Yangtze River Valley, which covers a large swath of inland China.

A massive project to dam the Yangtze River, harnessing hydroelectric power and creating a trade channel with more than 40 harbors, is in the works, boding well for construction contracts and further commercial development.

Chinese officials also want Wang, born in China and raised in Taiwan before coming to the United States 30 years ago, to lure investors from Taiwan: The walls of Wang’s office are adorned with photos of him with high-ranking Taiwan officials, as well as local Los Angeles politicians, a set of contacts that make him a perfect bridge for eager investors, he said.

His own mainland investments include a 22-story commercial building in Shanghai, a furniture manufacturing plant in Hupei, and a leasing company set up jointly with a Chinese bank to lease everything from airplanes to cellular phones.

While Wang’s title is largely ceremonial--the Chinese government is not paying him--he hopes to counsel Chinese and non-Chinese alike about wise investments and join them as a partner.

In the past few months, Wang has received about 700 calls from people interested in learning more about mainland investment opportunities, and has sat down with about 70. More than half were non-Chinese, he said.

“What I am trying to do is help people find the right channel,” Wang said. “Then they don’t have to spend all the money buying drinks and dinner for people over there. I’m trying to deal directly with the key men who make decisions.”

For San Gabriel Valley business people like Jefferson and Cindy Lee, established contacts in Taiwan and China meant their feet were firmly planted in China’s economic door as it swung open.

Eight years ago, the Lees had little more than an 18-foot truck to haul their Taiwan-manufactured goods from one Southland swap meet to the next. But in 1988, with Taiwan’s labor and real-estate prices skyrocketing, the Lees quietly moved their operations to the mainland, where eight facilities now crank out their goods.

The success of First Jefferson Tool Inc., Lee said, is due in part to his own ethnicity.

“Americans cannot understand China. No patience,” Lee said.

Even Chinese-American entrepreneurs, however, have seen deals turn sour. Horror stories abound, testimony to the high risks posed by a frontier economy.

Containers packed with the Lees’ automotive tools scheduled for sale here have disappeared for up to two months, sitting idle on a Tokyo dock for lack of freighter space, said Jefferson Lee. Other goods have arrived damaged, or without the “Made in China” stamp required by U.S. Customs, Lee said.

“Quality control is still not very good, so I go (to China) every month to supervise,” Lee said.

And while he’s always gotten his shipments in the end, two-month delays never help: “Our customers are ready on this end but we can’t get (the products). I lose control,” he said.

But despite the hassles, Lee is pondering an expansion of his business in China.

There’s a big market for food-product chains and home-building supplies, he muses. And automotive-repair schools would be sure to take off, so China’s newly rich can doctor their foreign-bought cars when they break down.

“There’s a lot of opportunity there,” Lee said.