China

Gary Locke and China

By Austin Ramzy | @austinramzy | February 25, 2009 | +

President Obama nominated former Washington governor Gary Locke to head the Department of Commerce yesterday. The process has been dominated by the withdrawal of two previous candidates. While Locke, the former governor of Washington, has had fund-raising problems that will undoubtedly be examined during the confirmation process, there don’t appear to be any major obstacles to him getting the job.

As a politician, Locke is a staid character. I covered him when I was starting out as a reporter in a small town in Washington state. When I interviewed him in 2001 he showed both a strong grasp of the varied issues important to the northwest corner of the state (where he wasn’t very popular) and a remarkable ability to say nothing noteworthy. I had to prod and push him to utter anything semi-lively. Joe Biden he’s not.

But what he lacks in flash he makes up in depth, especially when it comes to China. Locke was the first and so far the only Chinese-American governor in U.S. history, and his heritage is a key part of his identity. Since leaving the governor’s seat he’s work for a Seattle law firm and focused on China trade. He’s popular in China, has close ties with the leadership in Beijing including President Hu Jintao, and has been quoted before talking about how important it is that both sides find benefit in the Sino-U.S. economic relationship. During the Bush era stories about former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson often referenced the frequency with which he visited China during his career at Goldman Sachs. I’m not sure what Locke’s trip count is, but given his background it doesn’t really matter. He’s not lacking in China cred, and given the parlous state of international trade he’s going to need all of it.

Related Topics: China

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  • sing666

    I read an article about him. Not long ago, he was asked by Democratic Party to write a response to the state of union address of GW, he received thousands of racist e-mail. A lot of them tell him to take boat back to China. If he ever becomes secretary of commerce, he will certainly receive a lot more racist e-mail. Just wonder out loud how many people have sent e-mail to Obama to tell him to take a boat back to Africa?

  • mel0809

    No doubt, discrimination is everywhere. But you know what, that’s ok, just don’t let it bring you down.

  • johnsmith9876

    It will be interesting to watch, if Locke ever gets a cabinet post, is whose interest will he be most interested in – US of China. But since there is no conflict of interest in commerce between US and China, ever, now and forever, this situation is very very remote, if not absolutely impossible.

    Love to see Obama’s brother in Shenzhen talks about discrimination, though. I bet he will say there is never, ever, any discrimination against blacks in China, and that would be the absolute truth.

  • http://BangkokAtoZ.com mekhongkurt

    johnsmith9876 — a question: my heritage is predominantly Irish, so were I to achieve some high post involving my representing the U.S. to Ireland, would people ask to whose interest I might be most devoted? I doubt it. Ditto British, German, etc.

    I wonder how many generations it takes for a Chinese family — of a Latino family, for that matter — to reach a point at which they’re not automatically questioned because of their background.

    I don’t know much about Locke. But the fact he is ethnic Chinese does not make me automatically question him.

    I lived in China roughly nine years 1985-2001 in three separate stints, and I married a Beijinger while I lived in Beijing. And I have visited in between and since. While living there, I managed to learn what I think of as “Advanced Tourist Mandarin,” enough so I could wander the back streets and get some sense out of conversations I attempted.

    I mention that because I was even more struck by your observation that you imagine Obama’s brother “will say there is never, ever, any discrimination against blacks in China, and that would be the absolute truth.” Obama’s brother might well *have* to say it, regardless of what he might observe, for the obvious political reasons. And the Chinese sure aren’t going to wittingly or willingly let him see something contrary to the official line “we are family.”

    Having been inadvertently trapped in the foreign students’ cafeteria at the university I was then teaching while joining the African Students Union celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the Organization for African Unity, trapped by a mob of Chinese students who surrounded the building, cut the power, then attacked the building from outside by hurtling rocks, most of the time screaming racial epithets against the Africans, I was especially struck by the final part of your statement.

    And that experience was merely the most up close and personal. My Chinese wife and I were regularly discriminated against. Africans I came to know later sometimes had their own horror stories, such as the guy who got stabbed and seriously wounded because he dared to be walking across the campus of the university he was attending with his foreign-born, ethnic Chinese, girlfriend. No one went to jail, as far as ever came out — but he nearly got deported until not only his own embassy but others got into the act. (This was according to an official I vaguely knew at the U.S. embassy.)

    About three years ago I took a Thai lady (not my wife or even girlfriend) with me to meet my Sister in Hongkong, from where we traveled on to Macau then Beijing. In all three places she had occasion to do something in our [my Sister's and my] presence without appearing to the clerk, or whoever, to be with anyone. Most of the time, the service was, at best, cursory and dismissive.

    So, my experience on the ground diverges rather drastically from your observation, leading me to wonder upon what it’s based.

    Let me stress I’m *not* attacking you; different people have different, sometimes vastly contradictory, experiences.

  • sing666

    mekhongkurt :
    Johnsmith is the No. 1 resident idiot on this board. It looks like you just took up the No. 2 spot. Ha, Ha, Ha. After reading your post, I just fell off my chair laughing.

  • http://BangkokAtoZ.com mekhongkurt

    Hm. Among the many possible reactions to my posting, derisive laughter wasn’t one I imagined. Nor is it one I understand . . . but never mind.

  • sing666

    I am glad you are an American, not a Canadian. Canadian cannot be so self-centered and stupid.

  • saulaan

    Totally false, Johnsmith. If an African person comes up to a stall in the market in Guangzhou, the shopkeeper will often tell him to hurry up and buy his stuff and leave; sometimes they won’t even sell to Africans.
    =

    I bet he will say there is never, ever, any discrimination against blacks in China, and that would be the absolute truth.

  • rickridge

    mekhongkurt,
    Gary Locke’s ethnicity is relevant because China has nuclear weapons targeted on American cities. Ireland, Britain and Germany do not. Also China’s intelligence agencies have a history of trying to recruit Chinese-Americans. The Clinton era Commerce secretaries were suckered by the Chinese. Lets hope we don’t have a repeat.
    johnsmith was being sarcastic about discrimination towards blacks in China.

  • http://BangkokAtoZ.com mekhongkurt

    rickridge:

    _
    You do make a point well worth considering, since in China’s case it does indeed have nuclear weapons aimed at us, does have a history of trying to recruit Americans who are Chinese blood for various anti-US activities, and have (I believe, though can’t prove) tried to penetrate computers they have no business entering.

    _
    In the case of the various European nationalities I mentioned, no, of course they don’t have nuclear weapons aimed at us, yet in some instances some people have worked against our national interests, or at least against the US government’s official stance of the day. Consider the IRA’s attempts to recruit Americans of Irish descent in various ways during the height of the troubles some years back. And in World War II, the Germans certainly tried to recruit “ethnic Germans” in the US.

    I will be more surprised if China doesn’t try to suborn Locke than if they do. The point I was trying to make was that just because he is of Chinese descent does not automatically disqualify him.

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