An ‘Open Door’ Won’t Get You a Date

Next January, shortly after delivering the annual State of the State address to the Legislature, Gov. Pete Wilson, four of his Cabinet members and a few industry captains are to leave the country and not come back for three weeks. A three-week macarena through Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan and China. Just one big junket? No, smart PacRim networking and I’m all for it. California is so big, it could use its own foreign policy. It doesn’t, of course, have a standing army or national security apparatus or a commander in chief. But in the current economic world it wields many of the weapons of the modern state, including a strong economy, great people-smarts and a marketable reputation for a culture of innovation. Its annual gross economic product tops even Canada’s.

Looking in the direction of the fastest developing area of the world, then, is the right way to get new policy perspectives. And while it’s true that the incandescent Asian economies are now cooling, in part due to a dip in worldwide demand for Asia’s exports, many Asian economies are continuing to grow at a rate two or three times our own.

In fact, during the summer I wrote a column asking the governor of America’s wealthiest and most populous state to raise his PacRim profile and travel more to Asia. After that I didn’t hear from him until last week, when he rang up to talk about the most far-reaching official trip of his politically troubled governorship--21 days of drumming up trade and ties. Wilson rejected the view that he should have launched a big-time Asian trade initiative like this earlier, and defended his administration’s PacRim profile: “Hey, my door has always been open [to foreign trade delegations].” That may be true but that’s not good enough, Mr. Governor--if you want a date, you’ve got to get out of the dorm room and mix it up.

As governor, Wilson has made only one trip to Asia, in 1993. I’m glad he’s now making amends and saying the right things: “The important thing is the building of long-term relationships. With Asian countries, it is especially important to show the flag as head of state. Overall, a trip like this indicates a seriousness of purpose, and it’s important. These are terrific markets where I am going.” He gets no quarrel from me on this; I hope the trip’s a winner. For despite Wilson’s political stumbles and miscalculations, he’s still, until 1998, the state’s constitutionally elected governor--the only one we have. And, as unpopular as the governor is with many of the state’s Latinos, students and liberals, he’ll be warmly welcomed in Asia, whose cultures respect the other culture’s No. 1 guy.

Officials, world business people and sharpies from all over are now swarming through Asia, making deals. An impressed Julie Meier Wright, Wilson’s well-regarded secretary of trade and commerce, who has traveled there half a dozen times since 1993 (her assistant, Brenda Lopes, has been there twice as often), notes that many foreign nations have trade offices in Seoul alone. So do at least 13 American state governments. Not surprisingly, Wright wants to open one in Shanghai and upgrade the state’s miniscule office in Seoul, where Wilson visited in 1993. She’d better hurry, though: Utah has two offices in Korea already. Don’t blame the problem entirely on Wilson; the state Legislature doesn’t always see the value of trade offices and missions. Says Wright: “As someone who spent 25 years in the private sector, these kinds of trips make great sense to me. But in the political world they get beaten up on so much. It’s really a darn shame; you watch other countries with their focused marketing support of their industries and this is the only country I can think of where people who are actively trying to do this get beat up.”

America will only shortchange itself if it is shortsighted. More and more, the great Pacific Rim is a dynamic caldron of regional economies. They trade vigorously with one another and develop powerful new interdependencies. A trip like this, by California’s top elected official, is enormously important. The road to success begins with first steps. President Bill Clinton plans to go to China next year or in 1998; he should have been there and done that in his first term. Similarly, Wilson’s Jan. 11 extended trade trip to Southeast Asia and China should have happened already. But policy that comes out of the messy process known as democracy is rarely efficient or timely.

At least and at last both men, finally, are heading in the right direction.