The Chinese Are Coming, Part VIII -- To My Town

Mei Young, who will be heading Dalian's new Seattle trade office says she is organizing a trade mission in July to Dalian, Shenyang, Beijing and Qingdao to coincide with a Dalian trade fair that includes marine and air-transport industries.  "We want to do one-on-one discussion" between companies in the same industry, Young said. "If you're in the boating industry, we want to help you sit down with similar people over there."

The new office is in the Westin Building, which presently houses a number of consulates, Asian companies, trade offices, and data centers.  We have a number of clients in that building and I hate visiting them there because of the security.  It is the only building in Seattle of which I am aware where visitors are ID'ed and where the person you are visiting must come down to take you up to their office. 

I view Dalian's establishing a trade office in Seattle as a smart move on their part.  I have spent a considerable amount of time in Dalian and know the city fairly well.  Right now, many of the foreign companies with operations there are Japanese and, to a lesser extent Korean.  The Japanese like Dalian for call centers and telephone support centers there.  They use Japanese speaking Chinese at a fraction of the cost of Japanese workers.  Dalian time is only one hour different from Tokyo time and direct flights between the two cities take only three hours. 

There is, however, one very large sticking point between Dalian and the Japanese and that is that Dalian is in the historical Manchuria region where the Japanese committed many of their worst atrocities against the Chinese.  I have had many conversations with Chinese friends, including in Dalian, regarding the presence of Japanese businesspeople in China and -- to a person -- they all remain angry at Japan both for what the Japanese did to the Chinese and, perhaps even more so for their failure to own up to it. I mention all of this only because there is a clear and unequivocal preference in China, and particularly in Manchuria, for non-Japanese business. 

Dalian is a pleasant enough city with a good port, good infrastructure, and plenty of nice hotels.  Its government is less dynamic in many ways than that in some other parts of China, but it is not backward either.  We have worked with foreign companies (U.S. and Russian) involved in Dalian in the fishing, ship repair, and hotel business and they have all done well there. 

Welcome to Seattle.