Ties That Bind - Bay Area Council Economic Institute

New Networks Emerge
All of the above ties have different histories, structures and activities, and reflect different strategic
objectives. Some are privately supported by citizen committees, funded by businesses and
cultural institutions. Others are run as official city economic development and protocol efforts.
Some act only as a point of contact for visiting businesspeople or government officials, on an as
needed basis, while some are limited to occasional exchanges of students, musicians, theater
groups and art exhibitions. Still others involve ongoing programs of visiting scholars, professional
exchanges of doctors or lawyers, academic and government internships, gifts of public art
and two-way hosting of business delegations.
San Francisco has two of the oldest sister city relationships in the U.S. It has been a sister city
to Taipei since 1970, and formed the first U.S.-mainland China sister city program, with Shanghai,
in 1979. The San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee was established under the mayoral
administration of Dianne Feinstein. Shanghai was chosen for its parallels with San Francisco
as a port city and a financial center, following a business mission there led by Feinstein.
In its first 15 years, the committee participated in 150 exchanges, including reciprocal delegations
of doctors, lawyers and judges, as well as theatrical and ballet companies; training of Chinese
management interns in leading San Francisco-based corporations (7–8 classes have visited San
Francisco, and the first San Francisco group is set to visit Shanghai next year); and technical exchanges
involving airport and port development, hospitals and security. The committee organized
a massive Shanghai Week celebration in 1995 that included business seminars, snow leopards
from the Shanghai Zoo and Shanghai’s National Music Orchestra. In 1999 it sent thousands
of donated English-language books requested by its Shanghai counterparts. It currently has a
membership of about 100. A November 2005 China visit by current San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom, accompanied by Sen. Feinstein, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the sister
city ties.
San Francisco’s sister city relationship with Taipei was equally active in its early days before normalized
relations with the PRC, but is less so today. The committee helped San Francisco attract
China Airlines flights to SFO, Evergreen Line container service to the Port of San Francisco, and
the TECO office to San Francisco. A donated pavilion from Taipei has been a valued addition in
the city’s Golden Gate Park.
Oakland’s sister city relationship with Dalian, China began in 1982, growing out of port delegation
visits. The program has mostly involved student exchanges over the years, but activity has
stepped up more recently, with a visit from Dalian’s mayor in September 2005 and an Oakland
delegation to Dalian in the summer of 2006. Oakland also has friendship city relationships with
15 other Chinese cities that offer the same tax and investment promotion incentives from the
Chinese side, and plans to pursue commercial opportunities with them.
Milpitas’ ties with Huizhou began in 2000 at the urging of a group of business leaders from the
Silicon Valley Chinese-American Computer Association. Milpitas has followed the pattern of
cities with newer relationships, by evaluating prospective sister cities in terms of their size, education
level, economic and cultural compatibility, and active interest in supporting a sister city
program. The Milpitas program is limited to cultural and student exchanges only. In April 2005
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