Ties That Bind - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

8
Ties That Bind
Americans increasingly encountered a glass ceiling at the companies where they worked, a new
entrepreneurial pattern began to take shape in the early 1980s.
A proliferation of Chinese university alumni groups, and professional associations of scientists,
engineers, CPAs and others—many with overlapping memberships in the thousands—provide
business networks and a sense of community, particularly for new immigrant arrivals. This has
developed as an invisible but important infrastructure for the development of Bay Area-China
business. Umbrella groups with chapters in Silicon Valley and greater China—the Monte Jade
Science & Technology Association, Hua Yuan Science & Technology Association and Hong
Kong SV.com—have sought to expand two-way trade and investment and reverse the brain
drain from Taiwan, the mainland and Hong Kong, respectively, by reconnecting overseas scientists,
engineers and entrepreneurs with companies, universities and technology parks back home.
A Diverse Economic Partnership
Ethnic Chinese today make up roughly 8% of the Bay Area’s population of nearly 7 million, according
to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, with the highest concentrations in San Francisco
(20.6%), Alameda (9.5%) and Santa Clara (8.6%) counties. Many of these residents have family
histories reaching back generations. The ethnic Chinese community is far from monolithic: Hong
Kong, Taiwan and mainland nationals speak different dialects, come from distinct histories, and
pursue different commercial interests through mostly separate networks of contacts. Foreign
nationals often do not share cultural or business affinities with Chinese-Americans. Yet the
community’s overall contribution to trade, investment, job-creation, philanthropy, technological
innovation and entrepreneurial vitality is undeniable.
Some 5,500 foreign students from greater China (the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong) at Bay Area
universities in academic year 2004–05 contributed as much as $127.5 million to the region’s universities
and economy in tuition and living expenses. Foreign-born Chinese donors have donated
more than $50 million to Stanford over the years, and $53 million to the University of California
at Berkeley since 2000.
Stanford, Berkeley, UC San Francisco, UC Davis, San Francisco State University, the University
of San Francisco and Santa Clara University all have extensive ties to Greater China through
their Asian studies institutes, alumni networks, fellowship and visiting scholar programs, and departmental
exchanges in business, law, engineering, biomedicine, agricultural science, history
and economics.
Two-way manufactured trade with greater China through Bay Area ports and airports in 2005
totaled nearly $27 billion–$17.6 billion in imports and $9.4 billion in exports. The number of
containers shipped from greater China to the Port of Oakland nearly doubled between 2001 and
2005, and the number of containers bound for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan increased during
the same period by half. In all, the Port of Oakland handled 419,000 40-foot containers moving
in both directions, making China the Port’s top trading partner and the driving force behind its
business expansion. Other Bay Area ports moved bulk shipments of metal scrap, wood pulp,
petroleum products, industrial earths and other basic commodities.