Today in the Senate

A Busy Newsom Connects with China's Elite
Feinstein helped him meet ex-president, Shanghai mayor

December 7, 2005

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ended a successful trip to China this week that insiders say included high-level diplomatic and governmental talks that weren't part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's high-profile Chinese trade mission. The trip by the San Francisco mayor and senior U.S. senator from California also already has boosted efforts to bring new products such as cancer-fighting drugs to the American market, participants say. Feinstein and Newsom jointly led a 50-person delegation to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong on a trip intended to mark the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco-Shanghai sister-city relationship. But the Democratic senator, who has maintained close relationships with key Chinese officials dating back to her days as mayor of San Francisco, also was able to introduce Newsom to the nation's most influential statesmen, notably former President Jiang Zemin -- whom she first knew as a former mayor of Shanghai. Feinstein also spoke with a variety of top Chinese officials and diplomats over issues ranging from intellectual property and biotech development to Chinese concerns over arms sales, relations with Tibet and Taiwan and human rights issues, including concerns regarding Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Schwarzenegger, on his first official trip to China last month, got plenty of headlines as he was mobbed in grocery stores and treated like a movie star. State business leaders said he did plenty to promote agriculture, tourism and entertainment interests, but the Republican governor was not afforded access to the kind of high-level Chinese leadership that Feinstein managed. Feinstein, in an interview Tuesday by telephone, said the long sister-city relationship between San Francisco and Shanghai -- originally dismissed by critics as fluff -- has had decades of payoff for California. "Our relationship was the first of any American city and any Chinese city, and it was precedent-setting,'' Feinstein said. "It's been valued by both sides and developed over the years. "I happen to believe in people-to-people diplomacy. I think over the years that if you have good people-to-people interaction, it has a huge dividend for foreign policy,'' she said. The business message of the Feinstein-Newsom trip was clearly that San Francisco intends to compete aggressively with Los Angeles for Chinese business and access to a market of 1.3 billion consumers in China. But those along on the trip said Feinstein's valuable access to key Chinese leaders afforded Newsom, on his first visit there, invaluable moments, such as the rare personal meeting with Jiang. "It's not like you can just call him; he's an elder statesman,'' said Melinda Yee Franklin, who is on the board of directors of the San Francisco-Shanghai sister-city committee and has assisted other San Francisco official diplomatic and trade missions to China. "They could really talk ... because he is her old friend, and Sen. Feinstein has really cultivated these relationships over the years.'' At that meeting, also attended by San Francisco businessman James Fang, Feinstein noted several times that "now it's time for the future leadership, and we see Mayor Newsom as continuing to carry that torch,'' Franklin said. "She sort of passed the torch to him, and noted that this is a relationship that's incredibly important.'' Feinstein and Newsom also were granted an 80-minute meeting in the Great Hall of the People with key Chinese political adviser Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. After the meeting, Jia told the Xinhua General News Service that the session underscored how "Sino-U.S. relations are facing an opportunity for further development" and that such efforts will benefit both countries. In a city and state where Asian voters are a growing and influential electorate, such efforts could continue to reap rewards for both politicians -- abroad and at home. San Francisco has one of the largest Chinatowns outside China, and one-third of the city's residents are of Asian heritage -- as are 20 percent of Bay Area residents and 11 percent of all Californians. Among the other outcomes of the Newsom-Feinstein trip was an agreement between officials at UCSF and Peking University to create a joint Center of Excellence in Quantitative Biomedical Research. The project is expected to include a student-faculty exchange program, educational symposiums and a joint effort to fund further research in the life sciences One trade mission member, Sergio Garcia, a partner at the San Francisco law firm of Fenwick & West -- which specializes in the representation of high technology and life sciences clients -- said the agreement may afford "a lot more collaboration at earlier stages of development'' of new drugs, particularly cancer drugs. "There are over 100 drugs in China's pipeline in development ... and there's a lot of things we don't know about what kind of drugs are being developed there,'' said Garcia, who specializes in life sciences and legal issues. "The USCF-Peking University agreement is a key on unlocking information between us.'' Among other benefits of the trip, Franklin said, was a continued reciprocal agreement for business internship exchanges with San Francisco. And, she said, Newsom and Shanghai's mayor, Han Zheng, have agreed to develop plans for Shanghai to create a "healing garden'' on the grounds of the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion in the Western Addition. Business and community leaders who went along with Newsom and Feinstein include retired San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lillian Sing, Democratic powerhouse attorney Joe Cochett, former Mayor Frank Jordan and United Commercial Bank Chair and CEO Thomas Wu, who heads a financial group that has built an impressive Asian clientele.