Local leaders look to strengthen U.S.-China relations

Business and political leaders gathered at the Langham Huntington Hotel this week for a meeting of the Committee of 100, an elite Chinese American advocacy group working to strengthen ties between the United States and China.

Launched in 1990 to shape a collective voice for Chinese Americans in the wake of Tiananmen Square, the New York-based committee’s influence has surged with China’s economic growth. An organization that had to fight for attention two decades ago now finds power brokers lined up at its door.

Secretary of Commerce John Bryson, billionaire investor Charlie Munger, former California Gov. Gray Davis, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, philanthropist Michael Milken, the heads of USC and UCLA, and Reps. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and Howard Berman (D-Valley Village) were among the conference guests Thursday and Friday.

The Committee of 100’s membership roster is itself a who’s-who list of executives for top global manufacturing, technology and investment firms.

“We’d all be out of our minds if we didn’t create the same kind of relationship with China that we built with Japan or Germany after World War II,” said Munger, Warren Buffett’s vice chairman at Berkshire Hathaway and longtime head of Pasadena-based savings and loan Wesco Financial. “Interaction between Chinese, Chinese Americans and Americans who aren’t Chinese is highly constructive.”

Dominic Ng, president of Pasadena-based East West Bancorp and chairman of the Committee of 100, said the growth of China-U.S. trade forms a launching pad for the group to fulfill its domestic mission: combating anti-Asian prejudice and encouraging civic involvement by Chinese Americans.

“Whether at the bank or working with charities, I’m always trying to bridge East and West — helping Chinese Americans join the mainstream and fostering a better U.S.-China relationship,” said Ng, who was the first Asian American campaign chair for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa said Ng and other committee members helped organize his 2006 and 2011 trade missions to China and were instrumental in bringing Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping to L.A. in February.

Chu said the Committee of 100 was a driving force behind her proposed national “expression of regret” decrying the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, a law that barred Chinese immigration and citizenship. Members helped write the bill and persuade Republicans to co-sponsor it, she said.

The committee also funds an annual poll measuring American attitudes toward China and vice-versa.

This year’s poll, published Thursday, found that more than half of the public in both the U.S. and China believes the other nation is not trustworthy.

Hitting closer to home for committee members, roughly 25% of Americans said they believe Chinese Americans would side with China over the U.S. on economic or military issues.

“It gets at the fact that Asians are, in the eyes of many, always considered foreign because we look different,” said Caltech biology professor Alice Huang, an emeritus committee member.

Committee member Charlie Woo, former chair of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, said economic hardship has been fuel for anti-Asian sentiment.

“When there was a loss of jobs in the auto industry to Japan in the 1980s, it didn’t matter if you were Japanese, Chinese or Korean — you took the blame for economic competitiveness between the two countries,” said Woo, president of Mega Toys, which has factories in Los Angeles and China.

But there are signs of improvement. Woo said the group’s 2009 poll, taken at the height of the recession, found 35% of Americans expressed distrust for citizens of Chinese descent.

Conference panels focused on business and philanthropy, but also addressed possible China-bashing in this year’s political campaigns.

“Let’s not go preaching the wrong message,” said Ng. “Mutual understanding is not only good for the relationship between these two countries, but hopefully prejudice toward Chinese Americans can also be reduced.”