Newsom back from China already?

Newsom's trip on the 10 of November to China was all over the web (if you know where to look), and it seems he's back already.

With good results though, since the China Desk Chinese counterpart was opened in Shanghai.

The goal, according to the Bizjournal San Francisco edition article is "a reciprocal relationship that benefits both sides" (quoting Newsom, of course), where incentives such as tax breaks, workforce developments, help setting up, finding real estate, in short, implementing an infrastructure of services, will get Chinese companies decide to move to San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Important info : the China Desk is no longer called the China Desk - its new name is ChinaSF Did not see that one coming! Guess I should change the name of my blog =(. Ooh wait, I can't.

In other news, new facts about the China Desk ... sorry ChinaSF :

• Ginny Fang will head the ChinaSF office in San Francisco. Ms. Fang was until recently a consultant to the City Hall on economic and workforce issues.
• Her advisory committee will include Assesor-Recorder Phil Ting (cf. previous post) as chair; "Mark Edmunds of Deloitte, Supervisor Carmen Chu, Arthur Gensler of Gensler architecture and many other well-known Bay Area business leaders."
• Funding, unlike the Chigago one (which has yet to see real results apparently, despite the hiring of John Thomson,English- and Mandarin-speaking former State Department diplomat and as such lauded expert in US-China Relations), will be entirely private, and will come from companies such as Deloitte & Touche (who already has several China Desks, such as the Israeli China Desk for instance), Barclays Global Investors, HOK, the law firm K&L Gates, Warburg Pincus, Gensler, United Commercial Bank, Stanford Hotels Group.
  Budget for the next three years : $1.5 million (only half funded yet)

Positive results already?

Newson has proudly announced at the opening ceremony two Chinese companies planning to locate to San Francisco. Trina Solar, a public company listed with the New York Stock Exchange, with 5,000 employees that manufactures solar modules, will open an office in the city in 2009 for US operations. China Daily, a national English-language daily newspaper in China, will also open its first West Coast Bureau in San Francisco. And... ambitious goals : "If we can hit that elusive tipping point and get enough Chinese companies to sign up with us," said Cohen [director of San Francisco's Office of Economic and Workforce Development], "in 10 or 15 years San Francisco really will be the North American gateway for China's business."

Looks like the project is starting out well...

"So you now also have a friend in San Francisco, and possibly in California,"

From the China Daily, outposted by the MasterChinese website :

"US city looks to better China ties" - San Francisco being the city mentioned here.

Mayor Newsom is to go to Shanghai on Wednesday to officially launch "a privately funded business recruitment initiative", the ChinaSF initiative, "to further relations with China".

The article addresses the usual WWWW,H questions :

WHY - "energy independence" i.e. "creating an innovative green economy and "a stronger relationship with China" . "China will be our godsend here in California and in America "

WHAT - "The ChinaSF initiative is designed to attract businesses to San Francisco".

WHO - "a joint initiative between the San Francisco Center for Economic Development and the city of San Francisco"; "a marquee advisory board that includes""former US secretary of state George Schultz; Jim Wunderman, chairman of the Bay Area Council; and Phil Ting, the city's highest-ranking Chinese-American elected to office.

WHERE - San Francisco, the Bay Area, Shanghai especially Pudong, Yangpu, Suzhou and "other business clusters"

HOW- privately funded, it "does not use taxpayers' money"."Instead, it is funded by service-sector businesses such as banks, law firms, consulting firms, commercial real estate companies, and architecture designers." "I [Newsom] can use numbers, firms recruited, money invested as metrics of this initiative's success, but the biggest thing can't be monetized. It's the human capital.

"So you now also have a friend in San Francisco, and possibly in California,"

Backgrounder : China and San Francisco share strong cultural and demographic ties

"Why China matters to San Francisco" - From San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting

Click here to read and learn more about the cultural and economic influences of Chinese Americans and how that contributes to the SF-China ties.

China's new plan... has an effect on US economy

China unveiled its new bailout plan : $586 billion to spend by 2010 to bolster its economy, through social welfare and national infrastructure projects.

That's a huge amount of money to spend to stimulate its economy! In comparison, according to the IHT, "the United States, with an economy of almost $14 trillion, [China's gross domestic product is approx. 3.5 trillion] sent out about $100 billion in tax rebate checks this summer".

But for Dominique Strauss Kahn, this is a good thing: "It will have an influence not only on the world economy in supporting demand but also a lot of influence on the Chinese economy itself, and I think it is good news for correcting imbalances."

And indeed, according to Washington Business Journal, it does have an influence, as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 23 points to 959 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gained 198 points to 9,192.

The question left to answer is how long will this influence last? And what will this economic stimulus plan do for US-China relations, and especially San Francisco - China relations?

Here's the beginning of an answer, courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle (article from November 12th, 2008) :

"China's $586 billion economic bailout, announced over the weekend, could not have come at a better time for Bay Area business delegations looking to make their mark here.

More money, assuming the Beijing government follows through on what it says, will be pumped into export growth and green tech. And that plays right into the sweet spots of San Francisco's ChinaSF initiative and the Bay Area Council's U.S.-China Green Tech summit. Both groups are in Shanghai this week meeting with the locals, hoping to gin up business in those exact areas."

Click here to read the full article.

Why a ChinaSF office in San Francisco?

Did you know Shanghai has been San Francisco's sister city since 1979?

According to the Bay Area Economic Forum (bayeconfor.org), "Shanghai was chosen for its parallels with San Francisco as a port city and a financial center, following a business mission there led by Feinstein." (from the BAEF report, The ties that bind, The San Francisco Bay Area's economic links to Greater China, November 2006)

Sister city agreements typically make it easier to create a connection between two cities, and in this case, made it easier to create a two way economic connection between San Francisco and Shanghai - and, on a larger scale, between the Bay Area region and China.

Therefore what better place to set up a " China Desk" than San Francisco?
UPDATE : They're setting up a ChinaSF office.

More details on that later.

In the meanwhile, this 2006 article (based on the BAEF report mentionned above) sums up pretty well the situation in '06.