Ties That Bind - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

10
Ties That Bind
Building Bridges, Leveraging Assets
The San Francisco Bay Area’s relationship with China is a unique asset and an important contributor
to the regional, state and national economies. But it would be a mistake to take the relationship
for granted.
A growing economy is offering attractive opportunities for Chinese students and scientists to
stay at home to build companies and careers, at the same time as immigration restrictions are
making it more difficult for Chinese to come to the U.S. Chinese universities and technical institutes
turn out more than 350,000 engineering graduates annually, and the quality of China’s
educational institutions is improving rapidly. Incentives including cash grants, startup funding
and technical support after graduation, and exemption from military service (in Taiwan), are offered
to students who stay home to attend university. The scale of China’s market offers talented
Chinese entrepreneurs and managers an opportunity to build new companies and industries from
scratch. Meanwhile, post-September 11 security policy has made it more difficult for Chinese
students and professionals in specialized fields to obtain J-1 visas, and demand far exceeds supply
for H-1B visas.
In the course of conducting interviews and other research for this report, a number of ideas surfaced
for ways to position the Bay Area’s economy in relation to China, and to further expand
the Bay Area-China relationship. These fall into two broad categories: a) policy measures in Sacramento
and Washington to strengthen U.S. competitiveness; and b) measures that can be taken
by the public and private sectors in the Bay Area to leverage regional assets, expand trade and
investment opportunities, and strengthen the Bay Area’s position as the premier U.S. gateway for
business and other exchanges with China. Some of these ideas reflect broad statewide and national
competitiveness concerns, while others focus on specific local policy measures.
Among them:
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1. Strengthen science and math education at the university and high school levels;
2. Promote closer cooperation between industry and education to support continuous
workforce skills development and training;
3. Keep the door open to overseas student, scientific and professional exchanges;
4. Increase federal and state funding for scientific research;
5. Ensure that Federal trade and investment policies avoid politicization and reflect the reality
global markets
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6. Elevate the priority of Chinese-language instruction in elementary education, high schools
and junior colleges;
7. Promote the Bay Area as a location for Chinese investment;