UC’s Role in California’s Developing Foreign Policy

California may soon have its own independent foreign policy and the means to carry it out.

Since taking office, Gov. Gray Davis has launched a major initiative to develop closer relations with Mexico. In addition, planning is underway at the state Trade and Commerce Agency and the University of California to boost the state’s profile in London and, more tentatively, in Hong Kong. Collectively, these efforts represent the beginnings of a foreign-policy revolution that is almost certain to spread to other parts of the country.

It’s not new for states to open offices abroad to promote trade and investment at home. Virginia opened the first such office in Brussels 30 years ago. By the mid-1990s, 39 states had opened more than 150 offices overseas. Today, California has outlets in Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Israel, South Africa and Taiwan; there are tentative plans to open offices in Brazil, Canada, China and the Philippines. But Davis’ new partnership with Mexico, and the much less publicized establishment of California House in London, represent a new vision of the state’s role in international affairs, one that envisions trade as part of a much broader set of society-to-society relationships and exchanges.

During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Davis pledged to repair the damage done to relations between California and Mexico caused by Proposition 187 and Gov. Pete Wilson’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Although trade between California and Mexico increased substantially during the Wilson years, largely as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Proposition 187 turned many Mexicans against California. Tijuana, for example, declared Wilson persona non grata. Less publicized but more consequential was a large decline in the number of Mexican graduate students choosing to study in California.

Besides undoing political damage, Davis has other reasons to make rapprochement with Mexico a priority. By 1998, Mexico had passed Canada to become second only to Japan as a market for California exports. Many trade experts believe the state can capture even more of the Mexican market if political relations improve.

Davis’ overture to Mexico began in early February, when he spent three days visiting the country. Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo will tour California next month and is expected to address a joint session of the state Legislature.

One of the most significant elements of this developing relationship is the role planned for UC. The university already has a large number of cooperative programs with Mexico. For example, since 1984, UC’s Institute for Mexico and the United States, or MEXUS, a systemwide institute headquartered at UC Riverside, has promoted collaborative binational research ventures, bringing together faculty from the nine UC campuses and their counterparts in Mexico, to work on a wide range of issues of common concern to California and Mexico. In addition, UC is broadening an agreement with UNAM, the oldest, largest and most important university in Mexico, to encourage research, instruction and exchanges in air and water quality, resource conservation, trade, migration, drylands agriculture and human development.

During the Wilson administration, these joint ventures received relatively little attention. Since Davis visited Mexico, he has taken a personal interest in promoting and substantially expanding them. More generally, he wants to capitalize on UC’s expertise, connections and resources to add intellectual heft to California-Mexico relations.

Before Davis was elected, the California Trade and Commerce Agency had developed plans to work with UC’s exchange program to open a University of California “hub” in London. Traditionally, the overseas offices of the Education Abroad Program primarily supervise students. In the mid-1990s, however, UC President Richard C. Atkinson encouraged the program to expand its mission.

The UC hub in London will be responsible for a wide range of activities, including: facilitating instruction by satellite or Internet, special seminars, courses and research; raising money to allow UC campuses to undertake joint projects with overseas partners; providing a meeting place for UC alumni, faculty and businesses and nonprofit organizations desiring to establish a California connection; and hosting student interns. The hub will share space with the state Trade and Commerce Agency in California House, which Davis will formally open in October. Plans are already in the works to establish similar hubs in Mexico City and Hong Kong.

The UC partnership is crucial to Sacramento’s goal of increasing the effectiveness of its existing overseas offices and developing a more visible foreign policy, for four reasons.

* In the emerging international system, information and knowledge are the most important resources. By researching economic, political and technological trends overseas, UC can provide California businesses with a significant competitive advantage. In recognition of this possibility, a bill was recently introduced in the Assembly that would require UC to produce an annual report on trade opportunities in Mexico. In addition, UC research can shed light on the growing number of international-policy questions confronting state officials. For example, MEXUS has formed a binational committee on water to identify the impact on Mexico of California’s efforts to improve the water quality of the Salton Sea.

* UC is a critical source of the technological innovations that attract foreign investment to the state and open up opportunities for the state’s businesses overseas. For example, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, along with Stanford University, are major reasons why the Bay Area has become the biotechnology capital of the world.

* The university holds the key to the establishment of a network of personal connections that can greatly facilitate the ability of state businesses and institutions to develop and maintain global ties. For example, UC faculty are at the center of vast webs of scientific, political, economic and personal networks. Creating institutions like California House will both sustain these networks and multiply the opportunities to mobilize them in ways that will benefit California’s interests as a whole. Similarly, UC alumni represent an enormous and largely untapped resource for the state. Recognizing this, Davis has pushed to increase the number of Mexican exchange students attending California’s colleges and universities. Each foreign student who graduates here and returns home becomes a potential partner for California businesses, nonprofit organizations and government agencies.

* Finally, through its overseas exchange programs, UC is the primary vehicle of global training for the next generation of California managers, government officials and nongovernmental leaders. As the pace of globalization accelerates, ever more occupations will require some understanding of the world beyond U.S. borders. By working with UC to expand opportunities for study and internships abroad, Sacramento can give the state a comparative advantage in human resources.

Davis is giving UC a pioneering role in how California relates to the world. But seizing the opportunity will require UC administrators and faculty to embrace a vision of the university’s mission that includes the goal of helping to build societal linkages to other countries. Individual UC campuses will need to think more creatively about how to serve this mission by strengthening and restructuring the offices responsible for developing and coordinating international programs. The question is whether UC is up to its new task.*