Asian American Anger and the China Debate

As politicians in Washington were proposing measures last week to deny China trade privileges and even the right to lease a terminal in the port of Long Beach, the state treasurers of California, New Hampshire and Utah were addressing a conference in Newport Beach on investing public pension funds in Pacific Rim countries, including China.

Even as the government was reporting a record U.S.-China trade deficit owing to January’s imports of clothing and toys, Philip Condit, president of Boeing Co., was telling an Asia-Pacific economic conference at USC of opportunities in China, where air travel will grow 10% a year for the next decade.

Condit also recalled that Boeing’s first employee, in 1916, was Wang Tu, a Shanghai-born engineer. His reference was a timely affirmation of the long-standing importance of Asian immigrants in American life.

Americans of Asian ancestry are feeling beleaguered and angry these days as political parties and congressional probers in Washington comb through last year’s campaign contributors and make a point of picking out Asian-sounding names.

“They twisted our arms to get the money and then we get blamed for contributing,” snaps a Chinese American banker in disgust.

Behind the anger is fear. Too often, “Asian Americans feel they are being treated like foreigners in their own country,” explains William Ouchi, the UCLA business scholar and author. And that recalls the Chinese exclusion acts, prohibitions on land ownership and World War II incarceration that are dark chapters in American history.

Such fears and the whole atmosphere of suspicion about relations with China are potentially damaging to major business operations, says a U.S. company president. “On big-ticket items like production plants and aircraft, it’s important for U.S. companies to have the assistance of their government,” the businessman says.

But U.S. companies aren’t likely to get help these days. Vice President Al Gore, who travels to Beijing this week for talks with Chinese government officials, is reportedly nervous about bringing up economic questions, fearing the taint of campaign scandal.

Which is pathetic. He wasn’t nervous about asking for campaign money, so he shouldn’t fear that making demands on behalf of U.S. exports will taint his delicate reputation.

Clearly, such foolishness demands that we understand basic facts about China, America and where we are in a changing world.

The pension fund managers at last week’s Pacific Rim conference in Newport Beach understand that world. Typically, pension funds invest up to 20% of their portfolios in foreign companies and markets. Most such investments go to Japan and Europe, but now managers are seeking opportunities in the fast- growing economies of Asia and Latin America.

Opportunity is a two-way street, says California Treasurer Matt Fong, who took a delegation of finance people to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Singapore in January. In Singapore, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System--which has $19 billion of

its $110 billion in assets outside the U.S.--set up an exchange of investments with Singapore’s government pension authority.

“Singapore cannot invest its pension money only in Singapore,” Fong explains. “The market is too narrow. So it needs investments in the United States, which to us means job-creating investments in California.”

Similar arrangements were discussed with China, which already invests its government reserve funds in U.S. Treasury bonds.

CalPERS also made a $225-million investment last December in the Asian Development Bank, a 40-member Manila-based consortium of nations and agencies. The CalPERS investment will finance industrial ventures in Asia--on which California companies can bid for business. And the ADB will introduce Asian investors to California companies.

The message is that the world economy is developing in ways not contemplated in terms left over from the Cold War.

“As we search for a way to deal with China, we should not make the mistake of treating it as another Russia,” says a coolheaded government official. For one thing, trade with China has grown for two decades as trade with the Soviet Union never did.

And that brings up the phony issue of the terminal Long Beach proposes to build on land ceded to it after the Navy closed its base there. The port’s intention to lease the terminal to China Ocean Shipping Co., or Cosco, China’s state-owned freight carrier, has roused two San Diego-area congressmen to introduce legislation against it and columnist Pat Buchanan to denounce a sweetheart deal.

The congressmen and the columnist should wise up and calm down. Cosco, a 16-year customer of Southern California ports, is getting exactly the same deal Long Beach gives to all its customers: Shippers have to guarantee cargo yielding the port $15 million to $16 million a year in fees, or an 8% return on its $200-million investment to build the terminal--payback in 12 years on a facility that will work for 30 years.

Given the facts and the growth of common interests among the United States, China and developing Asia, today’s crises will pass.

But we should not ignore the underlying nastiness of today’s anti-China sentiments. They reflect American fears that power and influence will pass to other countries and that at home what some see as “new” people will gain at the expense of other ethnic groups.

Such fears reflect ignorance. Asian Americans, whose ancestors came here to build the railroads in the West, have worked and farmed, served and lived in this country for generations. As more have come, they too have become Americans. For a long time, however, exclusion laws and discrimination made Asian Americans relatively invisible.

That those days are past, and that many Asian Americans have come to prominence in public life, represent a victory over discrimination and ignorance. And it’s all the more reason that leading Asian Americans are furious at insults from the Democratic National Committee, congressional investigators and Washington pundits. Victories are to be defended as well as celebrated.