Governor In Asia -- Locke's Trip Both Personal, Symbolic

OLYMPIA - When he was 10 years old, Gov. Gary Locke was taken to Hong Kong, where his parents planned to leave him for years of schooling in Chinese language and culture.

His parents were immigrants, struggling in Seattle to reach the American dream but reluctant to have their first-born son miss out on the Chinese experience, at least what was available in Hong Kong, the closest an American could get to the mainland at the time.

Locke spent months at what he described as his grandmother's tiny hut. Children laughed at him because his Chinese dialect was unintelligible to them.

"I got homesick," Locke said last week. As much as the future Eagle Scout could, Locke rebelled. He demanded to be brought home, back to Seattle's Beacon Hill, to the Boy Scouts, and to his mother, who was learning English by singing show tunes with her son.

Today, as the governor prepares to leave for an official trip to China, Locke's near-80-year-old father, Jimmy, says he should have been more strict. Young Gary should have been immersed in Chinese culture. He should have been left with his grandmother.

"That would have been good for him for a couple years," Jimmy Locke said recently. "Two, three years would have been OK. He could have learned Chinese and English."

Locke has no regrets.

"I am proud to be Chinese. But I am thoroughly American," Locke said as he remembered his time in Hong Kong.

That was the mantra of an unhappy little boy in 1960.

It could also stand as Locke's guiding philosophy for his much-anticipated Asia trip - a guide to help him through a maze of competing expectations.

Locke leaves Wednesday for 12 days in Japan, China and Hong Kong. While it's billed as a trade mission, it's also a personal journey to his ancestral home, a tiny village called Jilong, and a symbolic one. He travels as America's first Chinese-American governor. The first Asian-American governor outside of Hawaii.

Any China trip by a Washington governor would be news because of the growing amount of trade between the state - the most trade-dependent state in the nation - and China, the largest country in the world and one in the midst of an economic revolution.

But because of his ancestry and the timing of the trip, Locke's visit has taken on greater importance among the Chinese, Asian Americans (particularly Chinese-Americans), Washington business interests and human-rights activists.

After all, when former Gov. Mike Lowry went to China he was able to arrange a personal meeting with the Chinese president, as Locke hopes to do. But Lowry could do nothing to generate the sort of attention Locke will get when he and his family take a personal side trip to the ancestral village in southern China.

"I think the Chinese would be inclined to view any delegation from Washington with greater than average interest," said Joseph Borich, executive director of the Washington State China Relations Council and the former U.S. consul general of Shanghai. "But that said, I know that the Chinese are aware of who Governor Locke is and what he represents."

THE ULTIMATE AMBASSADOR

The trip is already news in China. A TV crew from Taishan, the closest city to Locke's ancestral village, was in Olympia last week. A national government-published magazine announced recently on its cover, "Gary Locke, descendant of Taishan to return," with a photograph inside of Locke as a toddler.

Locke's trip is infused with meaning because it's part of a surge of Asian power around the Pacific Rim, says Orville Schell, one of America's leading China hands and the author of "Mandate of Heaven, The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China's Leaders."

"It represents another piece to the whole Pacific Rim puzzle being repossessed, if you will, by ethnic Asians, particularly by Chinese," Schell said in an interview last week.

Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, calls it a "new ethnic nationalism." He says foreign Chinese have a sense of pride in what is happening to China's economy and agree China has been mistreated by the West, despite personal misgivings they may have about the political situation.

This is important now not because of politics or culture, but because of commerce. China is the epicenter of the most vibrant mercantilism the world has ever seen, Schell says, and Locke may be the ultimate ambassador to the chaotic marketplace the world wants a piece of.

"I think this notion of race and pride is quite strong and I can't think of any Chinese American who is more prominent than Locke," Schell said.

What Schell calls ethnic nationalism, Seattle's Tony Lee saw in his father, who was a wealthy landowner not far from Locke's ancestral village, Jilong. Lee, executive director of the Fremont Public Association, left China as a boy in 1949 - after the communists stripped his father of his land, wealth and good feelings about his homeland.

But the day the Chinese tested the nuclear bomb in 1964, Lee said, his father was thrilled.

"He came from a generation of people who had been humiliated by the West, subjugated by the West," Lee said. "He was extremely proud that day and I asked him how he could feel that way. He said, `Finally China is standing up to the West.' "

Lee believes that ambivalence is shared by many Chinese Americans who see Locke's ceremonial homecoming as something Chinese to revel in. Perhaps for the first time in a long time.

"It heightens certain feelings and certain longings that I think all immigrants have," Lee said.

The trip is the most public display yet of Locke's stance on his Chinese-ness.

He's always embraced it, friends and family say. But it wasn't until his 1996 campaign for governor that it became a big part of his political persona.

He targeted Asian Americans for campaign contributions here and at fund-raisers in California, New York and Washington, D.C.

On the campaign trail, he talked of his grandfather, Suey Gim, coming to Olympia to work as a house boy in exchange for English lessons, and his father who came to Seattle after Suey Gim returned to China and opened a grocery store.

"He always felt it was an important part of his identity," Lee said. "I think it was an evolution, though, in part because of the new role he was playing in the campaign. He had to explain himself more."

NO FORMAL TALKS PLANNED

Since his election and elevation to symbol of minority success, Locke has become a "tremendous role model" for Asian Americans, said Daphne Kwok, head of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

There are expectations that go along with the role.

"I think it is significant for all of us in the U.S. to see if when he returns he was really able to do more in China than someone who is not necessarily Chinese-American," Kwok said last week from Washington, D.C.

Locke shakes his head on hearing that. He doesn't want his role-model qualifications to hinge on the success of his first official trip to China, at least not as measured in economic terms.

"Deals aren't inked on one's first visit to China," he said. "They want to get to know you first - even if you're Chinese-American."

Locke said he is going to Asia to "present my credentials." It will be 12 days of meeting and greeting politicians, photo opportunities, receptions, tours, and press conferences.

There are no formal talks about sticky trade issues. There are no deals to negotiate. Nothing to sign.

His aides don't even call it a trade trip. It's simply The Asia Mission.

Making deals is one of several things Locke says he plans not to do in China. He also says he's not going to talk to Chinese leaders about human-rights abuses. He doesn't want to be a messenger between Washington, D.C., and Beijing, which have a long list of political disputes.

First lady Mona Lee Locke, who will accompany the governor on part of the China trip, said Locke knows his visit means a lot of different things to different people.

"There are so many expectations on him, is he going to end up disappointing everyone because each person has a different expectation? How can you possibly fulfill all those? That's why he needs to keep focused on what he planned to accomplish on the agenda rather than trying to please everyone."

Timing conspires against Locke's attempts to lower expectations.

He will arrive within a month of the 15th Communist Party Congress. At the Beijing conclave, Chinese leaders reconfirmed their commitment to economic reform, even hinting at privatizing some government industry, but steered clear of any social or political reform.

More attention than ever is focused on China's race for dakuan - literally, the big bucks.

Within weeks of Locke's trip, Chinese President Jiang Zemin will travel to the United States for a summit with President Clinton. It will be the first visit by a Chinese president in nearly 20 years.

Many have speculated that the Chinese, looking to make nice before the summit, will announce a major aircraft purchase from Boeing during the Beijing air show, which runs during Locke's time in the Chinese capital.

The trip also comes as investigations continue into allegations of Chinese influence peddling and illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The key figure in the scandal, former Commerce Department official John Huang, was a fund-raiser for Locke's gubernatorial campaign. The Democratic National Committee has returned contributions from some Asian Americans who also gave to Locke, but it has not returned their donations.

Asian Americans, says Kwok, have felt under attack because of the fund-raising probe.

"Gary is one of the real high and bright points we have had this whole past year," she said.

David Postman's phone message number is 360-943-9882. His e-mail address is: dpos-new@seatimes.com

-----------------------------------------------------------.

GOV. LOCKE'S ASIA TRIP

Here is Gov. Gary Locke's itinerary for his Asia trip.

Oct. 1: Depart SeaTac for Tokyo.

Oct. 2: Arrive Tokyo.

Oct. 3: American Chamber of Commerce breakfast, Japanese-Western Association lunch, meeting with Japanese government officials, Weyerhaeuser reception.

Oct. 4: Arrive Beijing. Reception at U.S. Ambassador James Sasser's residence.

Oct. 5: Tour of Great Wall and Forbidden City.

Oct. 6: Briefing by U.S. ambassador, meetings with Chinese government leaders.

Oct. 7: Arrive Chengdu, Sichuan province, Washington's sister state. Meet with governor, tour Chengdu Shishi Middle School, tour Tim's Cascade Chip plant, tour site of bronze statues that will be displayed at Seattle Art Museum in 2001, evening banquet.

Oct. 8: Return to Beijing. Attend American Chamber of Commerce luncheon with featured speaker U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley, who might announce that China has ordered Boeing aircraft.

Oct. 9: Arrive Shanghai. Tour construction site designed by Seattle architectural firm, supermarket, local office of Seattle law firm and Washington's trade office; meet with Shanghai mayor.

Oct. 10: Tour Weyerhaeuser box factory. Leave for Hong Kong. Private dinner with Hong Kong officials.

Oct. 11: Travel by jet foil to Locke family village, Jilong, in southern China. Visit village, Locke family cemetery. Lunch in nearby town of Taishan. Travel by train back to Hong Kong.

Oct. 12: Depart for SeaTac.

Here are the people going on Gov. Gary Locke's trip to Asia. Official party Gov. Gary Locke First lady Mona Lee Locke Tim Douglas, director Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development Jim Jesernig, director, Department of Agriculture Joe Borich, executive director Washington State China Relations Council

Governor's staff Protocol chief Brent Heinemann Communications Director Marylou Flynn Community, Trade and Economic Development aides Barbara Dunn, Nellie Cheng (China only), Steve Odom (Shanghai only)

Governor's family Jimmy and Julie Locke (parents) Jannie and Edward Chow (sister and her husband) Rita Yoshihara (sister) Jeff Locke (brother) Marian and Peter Monwai (sister and her husband)

Accompanying delegation Chris Shaffer, chairman Washington Wheat Commission Don Heinike, chairman Washington Apple Commission Kenneth Pai, international marketing director, Port of Seattle John Kirkpatrick, Virginia Mason Hospital, international division Sen. Alex Deccio, R-Yakima Janice Neilson, executive director, World Association for Children and Parents Scott McClellen, US West Communications Ming Lie, Siemens Medical Judith Koenig, president, Seattle Chinese Garden Society Ken Mao, president and chief executive officer, North American Industrial Investments Feng Ming Liu, Microsoft Connie Wong, vice president business development, Asia, Nextel International Claire Petrich, Port of Tacoma commissioner Ruth Ruppert, president, Washington Star Trading Company Yuan Qian, executive director, Phoenix Group James Zuiches, dean, Washington State University School of Agriculture James Fitzgerald, president, Weyerhaeuser Asia James Manis, Columbia Resource Group Laurie Los, Columbia Resource Group Dave Bachman, chair, China Studies Program, University of Washington Josephine Young, St. Martin's College John Iani, UniSea Foods

Washington state China Chamber of Commerce delegation Jesse Tam, senior vice president of Asia Europe Americas Banks Gwen Fraser, chairman and chief executive officer of Fraser Inc., ship- and engine-repairing firm Peter Que, president of Power International, power-plant consultants Don Rapp, executive vice president Mega Pacific Investments, real estate and investment firm Nancy Mar, president, Synergy International, China investment firm Marty Waiss, former president of Gentra Inc., property-management and investment firm Richard Xu, president Mutual Net International, group travel company James Dong, president, DMD International, aircraft parts sales