Posted August 07, 2007 00:01

First Order of Business

Guests Aplenty for August
This month's newsletter features a slew of great guest writers, offering both information and insight for World Citizens such as yourself to ponder, reference, and enjoy.

Frequent contributor Tom Watkins offers a wake up call regarding Chinese Amway salesmen.(below)

Well-known immigration attorney Jeff Devore presents a million-dollar primer on investor visas.

And Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Lori Baer explains how the port it growing up and going inland.

Many thanks to all of them for contributing to Citizens of the World. If you're interested in contributing, please, drop me a line. I hope to make this newsletter a forum for everyone with something to say about internationalism.

-Al Zucaro


Trade Mission to Brazil
Enterprise Florida is announcing that Governor Crist will lead a trade mission to Sao Paulo, Brazil this November 3-8. With over $11 billion in total trade last year, including nearly $8 billion in goods shipped from Florida to Brazil in 2006, South America's largest country is our number one trading partner. Click here to learn more and/or get involved.


---RE-POSTS: Items too important to be missed---

The Big Easy
The World Trade Centers Association 2007 General Assembly will be held October 21-24 in New Orleans. As founder and Chairman of the World Trade Center Palm Beach, I am planning to attend along with a group of local business leaders. If you are interested in joining us, please contact me.

Florida is Missing the Boat
This was included in last month's newsletter, but in the event you didn't catch it, I'm posting it again because it's too important to miss. A recent Florida TaxWatch study shows that Florida has lost over $50 billion in spending and investment by foriegn visitors. More...

Moving and Shaking: WTCPB Member News

I'm pleased to report some impressive activity from friends and fellow board members of the World Trade Center Palm Beach.

First, Larry Casey was appointed by President Bush to Associate Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs at the US Dept. of Labor. More...

And Randy Avon announced that his International Business Solutions Group is poised to take off with the advent of the signing of a historic Trade Promotion Agreement between the US and Panama.

Congratulations to you both!

And good luck to guest columnist Tom Watkins.
Many of you remember Tom Watkins as the energetic, bright President and CEO of the Economic Council of Palm Beach who returned to Michigan in 2001 to become the Michigan Commissioner of Education. Well, like a boomerang, Tom has been recruited by the headhunter doing the search for Florida's Commissioner of Education to return to Florida. I can think of no one more qualified to assume this critical leadership role at this critical juncture in our states history. As we all know, there is an inextricable link between a quality education and the vitality and vibrancy of our economy. It is critical that the Governor fill this important position with a talented person like Tom Watkins who has always placed teaching, learning and children above power, control, politics and adults. Tom has shown time and time again the ability to build coalitions to accomplish great things for our children and community.

Let Governor Crist and the State Board of Education know you would like to see Tom Watkins back in Florida helping to build a better tomorrow for us all.

Feature Article: To Act Or Not To Act...

Immigration is traditionally a federal question, but more and more local governments are passing legislations addressing the growing challenges facing their local communities. What success these local governments are having is the outstanding question yet to be truly answered and understood.

Ask the mayors of Avon Park, Fl. and Hazelton, Pa. about the lessons learned in their attempts to legislate immigration-related issues and the difficulties met both in the political process and in the courts. These cities were pioneers last year in state, county and municipal governments’ efforts to address community reaction in the ever-present immigration debate gripping our nation’s attention. Their quest and the growing number of other governments -including local governments in Jupiter, Lake Worth and now West Palm Beach -- has prompted me to take a look at this trend and some of its results.

more...

Guest Article

Wake Up Florida -- The Chinese Are Coming!
by Tom Watkins

Watching my hometown Fourth of July parade after recently arriving home from China got me thinking about how far China has come since Mao Zedong united it under the Communist banner in 1949. Mao would be seeing "rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air" if he saw what was happening in China today.

China has had a tumultuous rise. As a people, they have struggled to overcome the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. And we should never forget the 1989 Tiananmen Square student "incident" where hundreds, if not thousands of people, were gunned down by "the Peoples Army" because they had the audacity to call for greater freedom and democracy.

Since Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world in the early 1980's their economy has taken off like Lance Armstrong on steroids. Yet, all is not peachy in China. Their government acknowledges that there are more than 80,000 protests annually by citizens angry over corruption, high taxation and environmental problems.

I am a product of the 60's; I grew up in the shadow of our nation's capitol with JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and LBJ as my political heroes. Those were tumultuous times in our history. My classmates and I were taught to fear the "Red Chinese" and chastised by our parents to "eat our peas; kids are starving in China." As a Catholic who weaved in and out of Catholic schools during my early years, we were taught to "pray for the pagan babies of China."

Later we would learn about the evils of communism and how our capitalist system was far superior to what the USSR and "Red" China citizens were forced to exist under in their countries. When I saw a picture of Mao, the founder of Communist China, it was like seeing a picture of the devil himself.

Today, Americans have a different set of fears and stereotypes about the Chinese. On one hand we love the benefits of Chinese trade because as consumers we are gobbling up the inexpensive electronics, shoes and clothes that keep prices and inflation low. Our government gladly sells our debt/US Treasury Bonds to the Chinese, who purchase with money from the hundreds of millions they are socking away through the trade imbalance. By purchasing our debt, the Chinese are keeping interest rates on our homes and cars low. On the other hand, we are angry about the loss of good, high paying middle class jobs and complain nonstop about unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, intellectual property piracy, labor abuse and the harm their manufacturing rise is doing to the environment.

East Meets West
China is changing in many ways.
In 2004, I was walking in a neighborhood in Xian, a city in central China with more than 8 million people,
when by sight and sound I discovered a public washroom. I noticed many of the residents coming out of the multiple alleyways were carrying buckets. It took a moment but I realized they were "chamber pots" or "honey buckets" full of human waste -- there was no indoor plumbing in the homes. The irony was that in their left hand was a bucket of human excrement and in their right was a cell phone. This captures the rate of change taking place in China today.

Some say there are more Chinese that can speak English than there are English speaking people in the US. Yet, less than 25,000 American students are studying Chinese. Increasingly while traveling in China, I am greeted with, "Hello, my English name is Connie, welcome to China." And these greetings come from children as young as four! How many non-Chinese people do you know who can speak Chinese?

This past June, while in Mao's home of Changsha, Hunan Province, China, I was literally accosted on the street by an excited shopkeeper who pulled me into her small shop and was motioning me to "Nin qiao, nin qiao, qiaozhe!” or "look, look, see this!" as she thrust a catalog on the counter and began frantically flipping through the pages, enthusiastically pointing at the products. I nearly fell over laughing when I realized it was an Amway catalog and she was hustling me to buy her Amway products. Ah, the American Way/Amway…a woman looking to better her life in the middle of the "Middle Kingdom."

In his recently published book China Road: A Journey Into The Future Of A Rising Power, Rob Gifford,NPR's correspondent stationed in China for a number a years, describes a similar Amway experience in Zhangye, a town of 114,000 in the middle of the Gobi Desert. The author met Ren Wei and Li Caijin, who lift up their bag with "An Li" printed on it and, underneath, the English name of the company, "Amway." He attended an Amway sales rally with the Gobi Desert Amway sales representatives who want to "shenghou" or "really live."

Many Chinese citizens view Amway as a means to pull themselves out of poverty. Amway has revenues of $ 6.3 billion -- two-thirds of which is generated in China.

As Deng Xiaoping proclaimed, "to get rich is glorious!" It is estimated that between 300-400 million Chinese have escaped poverty and moved into the Chinese middle class since China was opened to the world.

From Mao to Amway, yes, we are living in a transformational, disruptive, "world is flat," fast-paced global economy. How long can South Florida play "Peking Duck" when it comes to China?" China is changing. Are we?

Tom Watkins is president and CEO of TDW and Associates.He served as Michigan's state superintendent of schools 2001-05 and president and CEO of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, Fla., 1996 to 2001. He has been a student of China for many years and has traveled there many times since his first trip in 1989. He welcomes reader comments at tdwatkins@aol.com

-Al Zucaro

Reprinted with permission.
August 2007 International Newsletter Courtesy of Al Zucaro ©2007 Al Zucaro.