Valley economic prowess could translate into real clout if business, activist and ethnic leaders accept the challenge and work together.
From the republic's early days when New York interests defying popular sentiment ended America's Revolutionary War alliance with France, through Washington's escalation of the war on drugs in Latin America, East Coast interests and visions guided U S foreign policy. The 2000s could be different. Sweeping demographic, technology and trade changes radically changed American foreign policy's domestic base, creating an opportunity for the West, California and the Bay Area in particular, to construct an alternative to Eastern internationalism dominating foreign policy for over 100 years. Before the West can shape American world relationships it must construct a new perspective on global affairs reflecting its unique culture, economy and politics. It needs a new approach to foreign policy with less emphasis on Washington's ability to exercise world power and more emphasis on how states and metropolitan regions can develop their own global policies. It needs institutions indigenous to the Pacific West, competitive with those committed to old visions of America's world role. The best place to begin is California, especially the Bay Area, because there the foundations of a new Pacific Western globalism are strongest. Past differences arose between Pacific West and Atlantic East international interests because most East Coast trade flows to Europe and most West Coast trade flows to Asia. Factors likely more important in distinguishing Western from Eastern perspectives:
Role of ethnic groups, especially Asians and Latinos, in California's global affairs.
Ethnic politics always affected American foreign relations, directing attention to some parts of the world rather than others, determining which interests get priority and create social, political and economic interdependency. Ethnic impact on U S foreign policy is often misjudged because the most influential ethnic group, Anglo-Americans, is not perceived as an ethnic group. Almost all foreign-policy establishment founders in early 1900s New York City were committed Anglophiles closely connected to England. The influential Council on Foreign Relations for example was originally conceived as a joint Anglo-American institution. Anglo ethnic ties played a major role in shaping our response to both world wars. Washington's beltway still views the post-World War II Atlantic Alliance as America's most vital international relationship. Anglo-American internationalism's ethnic bias is largely ignored because its proponents played a dominant role in defining modern American nationalism. Instead, after Teddy Roosevelt's vehement attacks on hyphenated Americans not committed to 100% Americanism, discussing ethnic influence on foreign policy generally focused on the negative role of ethnic lobbies formed by groups such as those of German, Irish, Greek, Jewish, Cuban and other non-Anglo ancestry. These lobbies struggled to influence national policy, sometimes turning foreign-policy controversies into domestic conflicts such as the Eli�n Gonz�lez episode.
In California and the West the ethnic equation dramatically differs. The West has no dominant, homogeneous, internationally connected elite, and far fewer Eastern old-style ethnic lobbies. The West's white population, mostly descendants of Midwestern and Appalachian migrants, always was less elitist than in the East. Today its importance shrinks. California's white majority is a numerical minority. By 2025 Latinos, mostly Mexican, will be over 40% of California's population, Asians 20%. Whether California's ethnic transformation turns the state into a political battleground or produces a new cultural accommodation will depend on how whites, Latinos, Asians and Blacks adjust to changing demographic equations. In that regard the state is a world microcosm still grappling with consequences of the end of European dominance.
The model emerging in these new circumstances is the transnational ethnic network. California's ethnic networks, large and growing larger, mostly have not formed lobbies focused on influencing Washington policymaking and are unlikely to, partly because the region's major ethnic groups including those of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, and South and Southeast Asian descent aren't as ideologically or ethnically unified as their East Coast counterparts. In addition their relationships with their homelands are much more complicated. For example it's impossible to generalize whether Chinese are pro- or anti-Beijing, or Mexicans are for or against Mexico's ruling party. While lobbies focus on politics, ethnic networks focus on economics. They channel capital to immigrant businesses in the U S and support relatives and hometowns in both normal times and emergencies, such as last year's floods in Viet Nam. Through communication with their homelands immigrants facilitate transfer of skills and technology, development of trade and more migration. America's world role today is less about imposing our desires on other nations and more about building trade relations and resolving conflicts. West Coast ethnic networks, generally focusing on personal and economic connections rather than political agendas, are much better suited than East Coast ethnic lobbies to play a leading role in shaping U S relations with other countries in the new global economic order.
Weight of Silicon Valley and the West in the emerging digital-global economy.
After World War II the U S rebuilt the industrial economies of Europe and Japan, creating a new international economic order based on liberal economic principles. At home the strongest base of support for this effort was New York City, headquarters of many of the country's leading industrial corporations and financial institutions. Today that modern industrial economy is supplanted by a post-modern digital economy centered in large part in the Bay Area. Thus global influence and responsibility shifts to California and the West. The West's growing world economic role is the second important grounding for a new Pacific Western globalism. Evidence of the rise of the Bay Area and the West is overwhelming. Silicon Valley spawned the world's two most important new financial institutions: venture capitalism, now global, and NASDAQ, which after its recent link-up with the new European iX exchange and the launch of NASDAQ Japan, is poised to realize its goal of becoming the world's first truly global securities exchange.
Because of its early, commanding lead in digital technology Silicon Valley is headquarters for most of the world's most important high-tech companies and home to key technology divisions of companies headquartered elsewhere. One small indicator of their global reach: Most of the largest firms now have a multilingual presence on the Internet, with separate Web sites focused on most major countries. Meanwhile their physical presence made the Bay Area a magnet for companies and governments worldwide seeking to tap into the valley's technological magic. By choosing with whom to develop strategic alliances and where to locate manufacturing facilities and training centers the valley's new giants determine which world metropolitan regions develop needed skills and infrastructure to compete in the new economy. As evidenced by their role in helping win normalization of trade with China, valley high-tech companies became the most influential domestic free trade lobby.
The Bay Area houses a majority of the most important new media companies including Yahoo, CNet, Lucas Digital, Excite, Shockwave, Electronic Arts and San Jose Mercury-News' parent company Knight Ridder. This, plus Los Angeles (Disney, Rupert Murdoch's Fox empire and the other major Hollywood studios) and Seattle (Microsoft and Paul Allen's media companies) media presence, makes the West a major force in the new global media industry, shaping entertainment, news, information and education delivered to world audiences. The new media's critical role in developing Internet advertising and marketing means the West is better positioned than any other region in the world to channel the flow of world e-commerce. Pacific Western corporate leaders like Allen, John Chambers, Bill Gates, Michael Eisner, Larry Ellison and Jerry Yang are in a position to help lead the world into the new digital age like Eastern tycoons Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D Rockefeller, Owen Young and David Sarnoff led the world into the industrial age.
Global influence of Bay Area political activists.
From 1960s anti-war and free speech movements to environmental movements still active the Bay Area 1s an activist hotbed. Historical involvement is now an expanding cluster of globally minded activist organizations and supporting institutions including foundations, public interest lawyers and nonprofit public relations companies, the third potential foundation of a new Pacific Western globalism. Heavily concentrated in San Francisco and the East Bay these new activist groups think and operate differently from older international non-governmental organizations founded in New York City in the early 1900s such as the International Rescue Committee and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Most West Coast groups strongly commit to promoting progressive goals and grass-roots democracy. They rarely receive government support. Overseas they work closely with activists and community leaders rather than official agencies. At home they devote less effort to lobbying politicians and more to raising public consciousness or staging direct action campaigns aimed at corporations and investors. Several key Bay Area organizations provide much of the strategic leadership and communications backbone of a worldwide activist movement. Key institutions are:
Tides Foundation, incubator for progressive organizations and movements.
Global Exchange, a center promoting people-to-people exchanges with Third World countries, a leader against top-down economic globalization.
Institute for Global Communications, creator of online networks such as PeaceNet, EcoNet and Women'sNet to link activists worldwide.
Sierra Club and Earth Island Institute, key coordinators of worldwide environment campaigns.
Public Media Center, a non-profit advertising and public relations agency working with over 200 activist groups in the U S and elswhere including Canada, China, Japan and Mexico.
And many more. A comprehensive list would include hundreds of separate groups fighting for everything from rain forests to sea turtles, from Nike workers in Asia to traditional coffee growers in Central America. The world's leading activist cluster's Bay Area location makes it inevitable that the region as a whole will be at the center of debates and political struggles shaping global policy in coming decades. For leaders in the Bay Area, California and the Pacific West, the key challenge is how to use the exceptional opportunity created by these three factors. How can the region lead Americans toward a new sense of global mission and a new approach to global policy? Two goals:
Invent a new globalism reflecting still-unfolding interests of the region's ethnic networks, high-tech companies and global activists.
Invent a new global policy-making process taking advantage of these unique resources.
This requires us to forge common ground among groups to articulate a clear Pacific Western alternative to traditional ways of thinking about foreign policy in Washington. One place to search for common ground is the globalization debate. Reconciling opposing sides is likely easier in the Pacific West than in the East. Eastern battle lines are sharply drawn. The pro-globalization charge is led by corporations and the political elite. The campaign against it focuses mainly on jobs and wages, its main foot soldiers being working-class whites and blacks suffering most from the decline of the old industrial economy. Western concerns about jobs are certainly part of the debate, but not to the same extent. Globalization and digitalization create more jobs than they take away. The industrial working class is much smaller than in the East.
The West's debate is mainly about visions of the future and how to get there: How should human rights play a role in trade decisions? How can the environment be preserved amid development? etc. Though these are difficult questions, differences between pro- and anti-globalization forces should be much more reconcilable. Many new activists and ethnic and business leaders come from the same communities, went to the same universities, lived through the same formative experiences and are part of the same technologically oriented and culturally diverse milieu. Their values and interests aren't fundamentally different. Converging interests is clear, for example, in the near-consensus about the digital divide.
The Pacific West region would suffer most, economically and socially, if global connections are cut and digital divides widen. Virtually everyone appreciates the importance of narrowing the gap at home and abroad by promoting greater access for poor and disempowered communities. Connected communities can better make a living, protect their rights and become paying customers. Whether grass roots or high-tech, Western people agree these are worthwhile goals. The West also is the region best equipped to promote overseas development in the digital age and to solve the problems. Though some companies such as Cisco Systems and eBay and groups such as NetAid do it piecemeal, a concerted regional effort would have remarkable impact. Together the West's activist, ethnic and business communities have the technological know-how, global expertise and networking capacity to develop independent aid initiatives more sustainable and effective than solutions put forth by Washington, almost invariably under-funded, over-bureaucratized and politically distorted.
This is why despite our differences on globalization, Westerners are almost all globalists. If we bridge our differences to forge a consensus we could offer the nation a new sense of global purpose missing since the Cold War ended. The Pacific West also has an opportunity to construct a new method of making global policy, relying less on Washington's political leadership and more on the ability of regions to develop their own global policies. Take for example the debate on permanent normal trade with China. The House of Representatives approved normalization in part because of lobbying from Silicon Valley's high-tech industry. This should be seen as only the beginning of the search for effective policy. Instead of continued focus on lobbying to affect national policy the West should develop its own strategy:
Long-term dialogue with Beijing on the need to promote and protect rights of individuals, communities and groups to communicate freely.
Expansion of society-to-society ties between China and the Western states.
Bridges between China and Taiwan.
This strategy, coming from the Pacific West, could be much more effective than a national policy. Taking Washington out of the picture could make Beijing more responsive to pressure and encouragement on these issues. Western high-tech executives and Chinese-American leaders could patiently yet persistently explain to their counterparts in China why, regardless of national trade legislation, it will always be difficult for them to do business in countries that don't protect basic workers' rights and political freedoms. These conversations would not raise the concerns about sovereignty created when U S officials lecture or threaten Chinese officials. At the same time, Bay Area activists could make it difficult for high-tech companies here and in Europe that don't take into account such issues as Internet censorship and workers' rights in dealing with China. Through grass-roots campaigns they'd create pressure not removed by legislative action. Targeting European companies as well they'd assuage U S companies' fears that China will simply seek partners elsewhere in the world.
Key to effectiveness of such a good cop/bad cop strategy would be business leaders' and activists' ability to recognize and accept that political change in countries such as China almost always requires support, straight talk and pressure. Therefore their seemingly opposing strategies would be complementary. In a way this is similar to messages the White House and Congress tried to send to China. It's far more effective because each group would be genuine in its position and credible in its threats. Western corporate and independent leaders should work together to develop training programs, exchanges and Internet channels to increase information and entertainment flow between the Pacific West and China. Some already do but they'd have more impact as part of a coordinated initiative. Chinese-American leaders in the Pacific West should develop bridges between China and Taiwan. The West's large, rapidly growing Chinese-American community does not clearly favor either side on the issue of the reintegration of Taiwan into China. Instead, its overriding interest is avoiding armed conflict. It can leverage its extensive personal and economic ties with both sides to further this goal. Development of a such a Pacific Western China policy could serve as a model for development of regional policies toward other countries and issues. For example the Pacific West might also consider developing a policy toward India. California might join Texas, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico to develop a Southwestern regional policy toward Mexico.
The call for the development of regional foreign policies is certain to be decried by the traditional foreign policy Establishment on grounds it will divide the nation and weaken Washington's ability to speak to the world with one voice. These are siren songs. Obviously there are many issues, such as nuclear security, where responsibility must rest with Washington. Issues in this category are fewer than Establishment types believe. National interest Washington ritually invokes is often a chimera. On most world issues the U S has no clear overriding national interest. Shifting global policymaking from national to regional would place responsibility for developing and implementing strategies on parts of America with the most direct interest in a particular country or issue. Policies would be less affected by the ideological and symbolic political concerns of politicians with no concrete stake in the policy's results. The country as a whole would not have to pay for policies primarily benefitting particular regions or groups. For these reasons the Supreme Court decision to overturn a Massachusetts law restricting state purchases from companies doing business with Burma is a step in the wrong direction. Fortunately the decision was fairly narrow. Cities, states and regions still have options unlikely to raise constitutional questions.
Today the Bay Area has a choice. Westerners can follow in the footsteps of individuals in greater Manhattan coming together in the early 1900s to forge ideas, coalitions and institutions necessary to help America meet 20th century challenges. That would mean taking it on themselves to lead the way in the 2000s. Or they can defer to Eastern heirs of the old internationalist tradition and forfeit a historic opportunity.
Michael Clough ([email protected]) is a research associate at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California-Berkeley, where he directs a project on the Bay Area's role in the new global policymaking process. Peter Shorett assisted in research.
Opposing view: Geography doesn't determine political views
Cold war collapse led to policy confusion, kicked off a whole new ballgame in foreign relations
Imagine a football game where suddenly the players run for the other team's end zone. Quarterbacks discard their playbooks and make up strategy on the fly. Something like that occurred in our views of foreign relations with the end of the Cold War. When the Soviet Union imploded, world politics fundamentally changed. As a consequence there's confusion about the United States' international role. Gone is the once-neat symmetry with which politicians, policy elites, academicians and opinion-makers regard overseas problems. Trying to explain the topsy-turvy new game of U S foreign policy some analysts seized on a geographical explanation. To them, proximity means policy. They see different U S regions embracing different foreign policies. Arguments about intervening in civil strife in the Balkans or Africa, missile defense, or even trade agreements have little to do with geographic location. Political thinking in Cambridge MA doesn't differ fundamentally from that in Berkeley. Sectionalism means much less in contemporary, wired American than it once did, say, when New England opposed the 1846 war with Mexico. Take as one example Congress' vote on permanent normal trade relations for China. Congress voted according to their district, not their region. They voted yes if constituents would benefit from expanded trade and voted no if key constituents believed China should first improve its human rights record or feared Chinese imports would jeopardize their jobs.
California's congressional representatives supported the legislation 31 to 21. New York's representatives voted yes 17 to 14. Different coasts and regions voted almost identically. Even the major political parties much less predictably respond to foreign and defense issues except arms control. Granted the international environment is different. No major power or combination of lesser powers seriously endangers our vital interests like Moscow did. We feel safer without the nuclear threat hanging over our heads. We face perils from terrorist networks, states of concern like Iraq, international crime syndicates and plague outbreaks. Instead of Soviet missiles we confront vast human tragedies requiring peacekeeping or relief operations in places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone or Mozambique. Finally we must ensure that our current global economy, prosperity and security remain intact.
After the Viet Nam War Democrats were axiomatically doves and Republicans hawks. The war divided Americans as did no conflict since the Civil War and made our parties almost predictable on international questions. A funny thing happened on the way to 1990s humanitarian interventions: A political role reversal occurred. Bombing Kosovo provides one example of this phenomenon. Based on Cold War positioning Democrats were generally expected to be hesitant about overseas ventures and Republicans largely gung-ho for military action. The opposite happened. Democrats, opposing U S intervention in Central America in the 1980s or voting against use of force in the Persian Gulf War, went so far as to advocate using ground forces against Serbia, which as it turned out weren't needed. Congress' Republicans voted against supporting bombing after it began. Some invoked the War Powers Act, a piece of Democratic legislation from the Viet Nam conflict hampering strong presidential initiatives abroad.
Public intellectuals also morphed from hawks to doves and vice versa. Anti-Viet Nam War liberal Susan Sontag and leftist Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman supported sending in soldiers. Opposition came unexpectedly from Reagan stalwarts like Pat Buchanan and usually ardent defense advocate Midge Dexter. What accounts for this ornithological transformation when doves and hawks traded positions? Motives. Those favoring intervention in Kosovo interpreted American motives as humanitarian. Those against, wrongly criticized as isolationists, believed U S vital interests were absent in the Balkans. Politics also accounts for divisions. Senate and House members often support international actions of presidents of the same party or oppose them if they're from a different party. What did not account for the difference was geography. It's anyone's guess how or when unpredictability will end. A crystallizing event such as war across the Taiwan Strait could solidify parties and schools of thought into clear camps like the Viet Nam War did. Maybe fissures opened by the Soviet Union's demise will continue to widen. Politics produces strange bedfellows. If former doves and hawks can share the same nest, surely Eastern and Western birds of a feather will flock together.
Senior fellow Thomas Henriksen ([email protected]) Stanford's Hoover Institution associate director.
A great wave of ideas transforming India come from the U S, specifically Silicon Valley. Those ideas meet great resistance India will have to overcome to take advantage of Information Age opportunity. Kanwal Rekhi knows this firsthand. President of The Indus Entrepreneurs network in Silicon Valley and the first Indo-American entrepreneur to take his company public, Rekhi is a graduate of prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology, a leading source of Internet Age brainpower worldwide. Rekhi figured it deserved a share of the good fortune. With fellow alumni he proposed a $1 billion endowment, large enough to free the Institutes from Indian government subsidy, making them private and autonomous like elite American universities.
Many Indians were outraged. Rekhi's plan was tantamount to an industry takeover, critics at home and abroad charged. Outside management would turn the schools into feeders for Silicon Valley. Research on technologies for Indian use would be sacrificed in favor of more profitable, export-oriented work. Poor students would be shut out. Above all the Institutes are an integral part of the Indian state. To sell them would be virtually sacrilegious, betraying the legacy of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who founded them as scientific institutes dedicated to the needs of a developing India. Over 50 years after Nehru and the independence he ushered in, India undergoes tremendous change. The knowledge-based economy brings great opportunity for a nation proving its vast human potential in this arena.
As India adopts hyper-productive U S business culture, other cultural and social mores are also imported. Friction over the Institutes shows resistance these ideas face as they displace traditional values. Take for example changing attitudes toward creating wealth. Business sees it as a measure of productivity and a noble calling. In a socialist-leaning system such as India's wealth creation associates with greed and exploitation. The businessman image was long frowned on whereas the image of the government official, the public servant, traditionally received great esteem. All of this is changing very suddenly. As India ascends the technological ladder it rapidly adopts American methods of creating wealth and embracing entrepreneurship. American goods and media enter a once-sheltered domestic economy.
Even India's central government hopes to get in on the act. Deputy Planning Commission Secretary K C Pant traveled to a San Jose meeting of The Indus Entrepreneurs to announce founding a Department of Information Technology. To his amazement entrepreneurs including Rekhi heckled Pant off the stage. Their message was clear: The best way for the central government to promote growth is by deregulating the technology sector and staying as far away from it as possible. This sentiment found voice in India as well, where almost every day a newspaper or magazine warns the government not to interfere with progress. The admonition is necessary in a country where state inefficiencies and oversights of the state capitulate new ventures.
Perhaps the quintessential example is of Raj Singh, attempting two start-ups in India before coming to Silicon Valley to become a successful entrepreneur, then venture capitalist. One of his companies back home failed because of theft by a government agency. The other tanked because he couldn't get a necessary permit. Such bureaucratic blunders are a staple of India's socialist past. Enter the controversy over the Indian Institutes of Technology. Rekhi and his band of alumni believe they're giving the Institutes an even greater gift than cash: American-style management, moving Institute pursuits closer to relevant industries, further from the government. They would nurture an entrepreneurial spirit. They would increase fees to pay for needed repairs and wean institutes from government subsidy. Like prestigious American universities they would find ways to meet financial needs of qualified students. World-class educated students would be more than able to repay low-interest loans. Changed management style would enhance, not weaken, the Institutes' ability to cater to India's scientific needs. Money made by more profitable departments could be used to upgrade capabilities in all areas. The billion-dollar endowment is over 10 times the annual government subsidy.
The controversy is primarily ideological. When occasional nationalistic impulses like the fuss over the Institutes are stripped away, most Indians already shift their faith away from an unresponsive central government and toward a booming, high-potential private enterprise. This demonstrates incoming influence of Silicon Valley values, and it's just getting started.
Vishesh Kumar ([email protected]) is a financial writer for the San Francisco venture capital research firm VentureOne.
Renewing foreign coverage
West Coast media must help region set priorities, see complex picture should want news of Asian, Latin American homelands
For years observers lamented the decline of foreign news in American media. In the past decade the three major broadcast TV networks closed half their foreign bureaus. Newspapers carved back their foreign correspondents. Much of this is attributed to Americans' lack of interest in foreign news. With the end of the Cold War we lost the most compelling reason to pay attention to events beyond our border. Except for war involving American troops, such as in Kosovo, our eyes are fixed firmly inward. This convenient myth is manufactured by a news media trapped in the past, failing to respond to powerful changes reshaping America's relationship to the world. Foreign coverage is still dominated by East Coast media largely fixed on stories they covered for much of the last 50 years - conflict and the threat of war in Europe and the Middle East. It focuses on old country nations for the wave of immigrants who came to our shores a century ago - Eastern and Southern Europe or, for Jews, Israel.
Covering profound shifts
Missed in this historic myopia are two of the most profound changes in American life: the shift in immigration from Latin America and Asia and globalization of world economy. It's perhaps telling that these shifts were felt first, and most deeply, in the Western United States rather than back East. The change in migration patterns is dramatic. A century ago, and even up until the mid-1960s, the vast majority of immigrants came from Europe. Today as a result of the 1965 change in U S immigration law the Pacific Rim triangle of Asia, Latin America and Mexico is the source of almost all migrants to our shores. Rising immigration makes non-white minorities a majority of the population, with California leading the way. When these new Americans yearn for news from back home it's Bombay or Beijing, not Berlin. America's economy similarly transformed from an economy almost entirely dependent on its domestic market to one driven by the global marketplace.
A new trade picture
Foreign trade, less than 10% of our GNP in 1960, now approaches 25%, its highest point in a century. Trade in goods is challenged by a dramatic rise in trade in services where finance, computer software and American popular culture are leading exports. In this new economy an earthquake in Taiwan that shuts down semiconductor production is ultimately far more important than political tremors in the Balkans. Globalization shows up in individual American stock portfolios. Retirement security now depends on what happens in a global capital market. With more Americans owning individual stock than ever before, we're more likely to care about a run on the Hong Kong stock market than about stones being thrown at Israeli soldiers on the West Bank. Yet very little of this change is reflected in how the U S media cover foreign news. Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess, who studied foreign coverage, reported in 1996 that while the Middle East constitutes 5% of the world's population it made up 35% of foreign datelines in American newspapers. A tenth of the world's countries accounted for 80% of the foreign news broadcast on network TV.
An annual June issue of the American Journalism Review survey of foreign news coverage by U S newspapers yields little evidence of change. Besides the Wall Street Journal, which vastly expanded its foreign coverage and focuses mostly on business and economic news, American newspapers continue to cut back their foreign bureaus and correspondents. The survey also reveals a continued distortion in favor of traditional areas of coverage. Of 152 foreign bureaus 43 were in Europe and 19 were in the Middle East. Those two regions constituted 40% of all the foreign bureaus worldwide. Asia, home to 2/3 of the world's population and the source of 1/3 of U S trade, was covered by only 32 bureaus of American newspapers. Only 5 newspapers have bureaus in India, home to 1billion people, a growing number of whom are immigrating here. Latin America has 38 bureaus, most in Mexico.
Pacific Rim tilt
The only evidence of a counter-trend lies on the West Coast, where major newspapers slowly understand that they must shift their foreign news coverage to reflect not only new immigrant patterns but also a global economic paradigm. Papers such as the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the Portland Oregonian and the Seattle Times gave their foreign news coverage a definite Pacific Rim tilt. They know news from places such as Viet Nam and Mexico is more meaningful to more of their readers than events in France or Italy. Even this emphasis is more marketing than foreign news coverage. It's not just a matter of more Pacific Rim coverage. From global capital flows to environmental pollution in China we must report on and provide fresh understandings of how our lives here are woven tightly into events abroad. The media plays a crucial role in shaping public perception on foreign policy issues. If the West is to lead in setting American policy priorities, Western media must offer a sophisticated worldview.
Veteran foreign correspondent Dan Sneider ([email protected]) Mercury News' national/foreign editor.
Changing immigration debate
Silicon Valley taps its political clout and could do more
IMMIGRATION ADVOCATES call it the best time ever for a kinder, gentler immigration policy. They have the technology lobby's awesome power to thank. In less than four years Silicon Valley shifted the national debate from how to seal the borders to how to attract the best and brightest immigrants. 1996 politicians worked zealously to crack down on illegal aliens and deadbeat immigrants on welfare. September 1996 legal immigrants lost most of their welfare benefits, including food stamps and Medicaid. In the following months Republicans pushed unsuccessfully for punitive proposals including deporting legal immigrants spending more than a year on welfare and denying public education to illegal immigrants. Even without these Draconian provisions the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was the toughest such legislation in recent history. The badly demoralized immigration lobby declared it a hard-fought victory. In 1996 winning meant not losing ground. Less than four years later the mood among these same groups is near euphoric. No longer content to merely recover benefits lost in 1996 a so-called Third World-Nerd alliance pushes ambitious proposals aimed at revamping the immigration process. There's even giddy talk of granting provisional green cards to all foreign workers. Even conservative hardliners like Rep. David Dreier, R-Covina, who worked overtime to pass the 1996 act, extol immigration's virtues. Without these professionals, prosperity we enjoy today is threatened, he told Time magazine.
So what happened? Simple: the much-touted economic boom, fueled overwhelmingly by the technology industry. Economic success eases pressure to crack down on immigrants taking away U S jobs. The boom also brought the technology industry immense political power, used to change the debate's direction. Apart from government regulation, immigration was Silicon Valley's No. 1 issue. The first signs were apparent even in 1996 when Bill Gates stepped into the fray to stave off a harder-hitting employee verification program and a reduction in legal immigration. Gates' thesis was simple: Let talented professionals in or lose them to Beijing or New Delhi. Silicon Valley since made the same argument over and over again, especially during the annual H-1B visa ritual when the cap is reached and it's time to consider increases. The argument was picked up by politicians chanting mantras of labor shortages, economic growth and the need to attract highly skilled workers worldwide. Immigrants are no longer poor low-skilled workers who steal American jobs or live off welfare. Today the dominant image of the immigrant is that of a well-educated computer engineer working 12 hours a day. This new image, combined with the general sense of prosperity, made the task of those who wish to stem immigration more difficult. Conservatives switched to a new slogan: We're anti-immigration but pro-immigrant. Washington-based Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform opposes H-1B as indentured servitude. Labor unions, too, altered their strategy. The AFL-CIO pushes for greater rights for illegals, including a general farm worker amnesty. By protecting the rights of foreign-born workers legal or illegal, unions hope to expand membership and reduce the economic lure of cheap immigrant labor.
New coalition
Immigrant-rights groups try to use Silicon Valley momentum to push through measures to help non-technology workers as well. One proposal by a new coalition led by Jack Kemp and Henry Cisneros would combine removing the ceiling on H-1B visas with a new general amnesty program for illegal immigrants. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, backed by the Clinton White House, added two provisions to her H-1B bill. One would extend a current amnesty provision for Nicaraguans and Cubans to others in Latin America. The other would allow illegal immigrants entering the U S before 1986 to apply for citizenship. Tying Silicon Valley interests to broader immigration reform may prove difficult. Republicans balk at Lofgren's proposal. The H-1B bill is mired in partisan deadlock. Nor is the technology lobby interested in spending its political capital on a broader immigration agenda. Organizations such as the International Technology Association of America are reluctant to lobby for Lofgren's provisions, especially if it makes their own agenda more difficult to push through. Most liberal provisions under consideration in Congress narrowly target making immigration easier for technology workers. This does not sit well with groups such as the National Council of La Raza, angry that Congress pays greater attention to well-heeled engineers than to blue-collar workers.
Politics of technology
A coalition including Silicon Valley should be immigration advocates' best bet. Valley leaders including Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak and industry observer Esther Dyson favor liberalizing immigration policy across the board. It fits the industry's generally libertarian philosophy. Intel co-founder Andy Grove urged Congress to systematically review immigration
policies with an eye toward change. These industry leaders may have to decide whether to fight for broader political values or narrow corporate interests. If they pursue a broader immigration agenda Silicon Valley can take credit for changing our economy, technology and national political landscape.
Freelancer Lakshmi Chaudhry ([email protected]) contributes to Wired News.