Riordan Offers Tips on City Government in Shanghai

This time, there will be no chitchats with the president of China, no tete-a-tete with the emperor of Japan, no promise of multibillion-dollar trade deals, not even clear weather for a good look at the famous Shanghai skyline.

On his first trip to Asia since a high-profile visit two years ago, Mayor Richard Riordan’s new role is teacher. His students are Shanghai bureaucrats looking for a few good tips on making their city the preferred capital of the 21st century.

At the invitation of the Shanghai mayor, Riordan on Sunday joined hundreds of business leaders from around the world who were summoned here to impart the wisdom of efficient government. Executives from the likes of Pepsi-Cola and Andersen Worldwide preached the capitalist virtues of laissez faire, openness and the rule of law. Government, they argued, should steer, not row, the boat. Leave that to private enterprise.

Much of the advice might have seemed counterintuitive to Communist bureaucrats raised to trust in the supremacy of the state. But many guests at the one-day conference expressed confidence that Shanghai officials are genuinely interested in trying a different approach.

They might not have a choice. As China stands at the doorstep of the World Trade Organization, it soon will face tough new standards and have to compete in the world economy in ways it has never had to before.

“This is not just fluff,” said Philip Murtaugh, chairman and chief executive of GM China. “Four years ago, the theme was environment. The objective was to clean up the Suzhou Creek [which flows through the center of Shanghai], and they’ve done it.”

Before flying home this evening, Riordan hopes to get a commitment from his hosts to open Shanghai’s first international foreign trade office in Los Angeles. This is part of his plan to expand air and shipping facilities and make Los Angeles the gateway to global trade.

China is a key element of that strategy. According to Riordan, about 40% of the cargo arriving in Los Angeles originates in China, with Shanghai being the city’s biggest Chinese client. The trade office, if opened, would encourage more commerce across the Pacific, especially between Shanghai and Los Angeles.

Riordan has met both China’s President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji. Both are former mayors of Shanghai. Though this is his first visit to China’s Manhattan, Riordan did not hesitate to tell the current Xu Kuangdi administration that executives must be willing to get rid of weak department heads, share power with strong leaders and hold them accountable.

Two municipal leaders who shared their city management skills with the gathering Sunday were from Melbourne, Australia, and Seoul. Riordan joked that he was invited to speak because of his wife, Nancy Daly Riordan, who did not accompany him this time. During Zhu’s visit to Los Angeles last year, the Sino-U.S. relationship was at a low. Charges of nuclear espionage poisoned it more. She apparently joked to the premier that the Chinese government should label its warheads “Made in China, not stolen from the United States.” Zhu liked the quip so much that he repeated it around the world, Riordan said.

At the forum, the mayor offered an example of the American custom of cracking a joke before a serious speech. Following up on a discussion of the bane of knockoff consumer goods, which are widely available on the streets here, Riordan asked Xu if he could please not enforce counterfeiting laws “until I buy my wife a Prada purse.”