Jiang doing U.S. a favor with Hawaii stop

Honolulu image, East-West Center fortunes , U.S. multiculturalism all stand to benefit from Beijing chief's visit to island state.

By Edward Neilan

TOKYO (JP): China's President Jiang Zemin is doing Americans a favor by starting his visit to the U.S. next week with a stop in Hawaii.

Sure, he'll later get the Williamsburg, Virginia, colonial heritage treatment, a big hello from the brokers on Wall Street and a seat at the First Table in the White House.

(He may also get a first-hand earful of taunts from hecklers backing causes ranging from Taiwan to Tibet, from protests over the jobs lost to makers of low-cost Chinese sneakers, to placards demanding that he free dissident Wei Jingsheng from a Beijing slammer and others.

Conversely, his itinerary may be virtually ignored by millions of citizens involved with the baseball World Series and the National Football League and college football races which have classic autumn matchups scheduled during his visit. Welcome to America, President Jiang Zemin!)

Jiang should have our gratitude not for the wreath he'll be laying to honor the heroic dead at Pearl Harbor---part of his "alert" at the new "defense guidelines" recently signed by Japan and the United States and their implications for a possible "encirclement of China'"---nor for the various scenarios about 21st century cooperation scripted for him by his favorite think tank, the Shanghai Institute of International Studies.

It should be said right here that there is ample reason for us to take off our hats for Jiang, and I will lead the exercise since I have been one of China's strong critics since Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the 1996 missile intimidation of Taiwan.

The man has recently concluded a Communist Party Congress heralded as the virtually uncontested leader of a 1.2 billion population nation that is on the verge of developing an awesome set of economic statistics.

He has successfully completed the handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule without the dire consequences that were widely predicted.

Jiang deserves our thanks for calling attention to the fact that Hawaii is a most important part of the U.S.' historic and future relationship with Asia.

Beyond the strategic and military realities are great philosophical debates about the multiculturalism that is commonplace in Hawaii and is only recently being acknowledged on the mainland.

The astute Hawaii-born University of California Professor Ronald Takaki reminds us in his book From Different Shores that there are more surname entries for "Nguyen" than for "Jones" in the San Jose, California, telephone directory.

Jiang tells us by his very presence that the United States is Eurocentric only in the minds of outdated thinkers.

Honolulu gets a boost by the visit of China's president. It was only yesterday that the slogans were touting "Hawaii -- America's Gateway to Asia."

But longer range 747s took businessmen directly to Asia, overflying Waikiki. Instead Hawaii became known as a prime honeymoon destination for Japanese newlyweds.

But now, travelers like Jiang may find Honolulu has flip-side appeal as Asia's "Gateway to the U.S."

The East-West Center takes on new relevance for its role as an educational crossroads linking Asia and the U.S.

I'll be at the East-West Center's Jefferson Fellows 30th anniversary reunion in Hong Kong Nov. 14-16. More than 300 Asian and American journalists have gone through the program, establishing in the process a unique network of contacts in the region.

"Hong Kong After the Handover" is the theme which Jefferson curator Web Nolan has lined up for the seminar, featuring speeches by C.H. Tung, Hong Kong's Chief Executive; Ma Yuzhen, the PRC Representative in Hong Kong; and Martin Lee, leader of the Hong Kong Democratic Party.

But it took the visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin to remind us what we've known all along: that Hawaii is a very important cultural, strategic, business and educational link between the U.S. and Asia and that these strengths will be magnified in the future, particularly in their human dimensions.