The Stanford Center at Peking University will be an architectural combination of east and west, according to university officials. A presentation on the new facility by Coit Blacker, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford, is scheduled Thursday for members of the university’s Faculty Senate.
Seven university departments — including the School of Medicine’s Asian Liver Center, the Bing Overseas Studies Program and the Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness — have committed to establishing a presence at the new center.

“China’s position as a global economic leader means that the university should be at the forefront of helping our students and faculty better understand the country’s policies, culture and views while at the same time forging intellectual ties with its brightest and most important thinkers,” Stanford President John Hennessy said in a statement.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke traveled to Los Angeles, Calif., today for the second stop of the New Markets, New Jobs small business outreach tour.  Joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and USC Marshall School of Business Dean James G. Ellis, Locke discussed the importance of exports to America’s economic recovery and job creation, and the resources that the government is providing to connect local small- and medium-sized businesses with foreign buyers, especially those from the Asia-Pacific markets, in order to help them sell more overseas and hire more at home.  

Announced on the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s National Export Initiative, New Markets, New Jobs is a year-long, interagency, multi-city outreach campaign designed to proactively bring government services to businesses across the country that are interested in exporting.  The tour was launched in Minneapolis in February, and will continue on to New Orleans, Louisiana in April and Wilmington, Delaware in May.

Since 2009, Chevron has committed $7 million each year through the California Partnership, increasing Chevron’s overall investment in the state to approximately $28 million year-over-year. Chevron has also partnered with Kiva.org and the Opportunity Fund to help support entrepreneurs in California and around the world.

“The economic slowdown has made it especially difficult to secure funding for Bay Area small businesses and entrepreneurs, often a catalyst for job creation and economic growth for the state,” said Stephen Vogel, CEO of Grameen America. “Chevron’s support will help hundreds of entrepreneurs realize their dreams of starting their own businesses.”

In addition to the investment by Cheveron, San Francisco based Wells Fargo has also invested $1 million into Grameen America to support the nonprofit microlender’s expansion into the Bay Area.

The Wine Institute—which manages its own international marketing and shipping export program—will provide campaign materials to winemakers, importers, retailers and restaurateurs actively pushing California wine overseas. “The ‘Discover California Wines’ campaign gives our international representatives the tools they need to build California wine sales exponentially around the globe,” said Robert Koch, president and CEO of The Wine Institute. “We’re setting an ambitious goal of more than doubling California/U.S. wine exports to $2 billion by 2022.”

The good news was tempered somewhat by the fact that California did not quite keep pace with the nation as a whole which boosted its merchandise exports by 19.4 percent. Also, California has a relatively high percentage of re-exports, which are items previously imported into the United States that have had no significant value added prior to being shipped abroad. “California’s numerous trading companies do a superb job sourcing goods from around the world and matching them with foreign customers,” O’Connell said. “That’s why California’s re-export trade leaped by 36.3 percent in November.” Exports of goods manufactured in California, meanwhile, increased just 6.7 percent. Overall U.S. manufactured exports, in contrast, jumped 16.7 percent, O’Connell reported.

California made up 11.1 percent of all U.S. merchandise exports in November, but just 9.6 percent of its manufactured exports, Beacon reported. California’s exports of nonmanufactured goods represented 12.4 percent of the nation’s exports of those goods, but fully 19.8 percent of the nation’s shipments of re-exported goods came from California.

As a result, California’s export trade has a less immediate positive impact on the state’s economy and on its propensity for job creation, O’Connell said. “California manufacturers have become exceptionally efficient in increasing output without adding new hires,” O’Connell said in the release. “And the goods they produce tend to be of increasingly higher value. That’s why it is possible for the value of our manufactured exports to rise without there being a commensurate level of job growth.”

That also explains why California lost 4,400 manufacturing jobs between November 2010 and November 2009, based on seasonally adjusted numbers from the California Employment Development Department, despite California adding 110,900 jobs overall, O’Connell said.

South Korea is California’s 5th largest trading partner, a press release by the Chamber notes. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. Its economy relies heavily on exports to prosper. The following are some of the sectors that the Korean market demands more products from: automotive, broadcasting, communication and computer technologies, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals/nutritional supplements, and environmental technology, education and training services.

The Chamber broke a tradition of non-partisanship dating back more than 100 years when it endorsed Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election. For this, they were rewarded handsomely by the Schwarzenegger administration and were given unprecedented access and influence over our State government, to the detriment of almost everyone else – especially small business. The “job killer” label they put on any legislation they didn’t like, for example, for many years virtually guaranteed a Schwarzenegger veto.

According to several news reports, complaints have now been filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission that say the Chamber didn’t even fund this ad through its own political action committee- since that would have been subject to disclosure regulations, and instead paid for it through their membership dues, to the tune of more than one million dollars! They also noted that Republican candidate Meg Whitman’s campaign manager, former Gov. Pete Wilson, is on the chamber’s board.

The man responsible for turning the California Chamber of Commerce into this overtly partisan political organization is apparently their President and CEO: Allan Zaremberg, He was the Master of Ceremonies at the Republican Primary Gubernatorial Debate in Orange County last month, touting his take on “the importance of a business-friendly governor to California”.

He is also the head of the “California State Protocol Foundation” – a shadowy “non profit organization” has paid for millions of dollars’ worth of Schwarzenegger’s overseas travel and other bills racked up by his office, including the use of private jets. This group claims these payments allow the Governor to meet with foreign dignitaries, “thereby supporting business opportunities between California and their countries” but what they have really done is turn what should have been public interest trade missions into luxury junkets with blatant cronyism. More than anything, this organization has corrupted and perverted California’s international trade and economic development programs, and it is almost unbelievable that they have gotten away with it.

The ad now being run by the California Chamber is stunning in its dishonesty. For example, they attack Brown for having been against Proposition 13, the property tax initiative, not mentioning that they were also opposed to it at the time. The theme of the ad is “enough is enough” and that may very well be the way many in California feel about the California Chamber of Commerce.

Let’s hope the next Governor- who ever he or she is, from whatever party, will stop this bullying and political manipulation by the California Chamber of Commerce. The rest of us – especially small business, deserve a seat at the table on California business issues for a change. It seems to me that members of the California Chamber of Commerce should not only resign from this organization, they should also demand a full refund of their membership fees for as many years as they have been members. Regardless of their political party, I’m sure they didn’t sign on for this garbage.

The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the state of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China’s desire to become a big exporter and licenser of bullet trains traveling 350 kilometers, or about 215 miles, an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the past few years.

“We are the most advanced in many fields, and we are willing to share with the United States,” said Zheng Jian, the chief planner and director of high-speed rail at the Chinese Railroad Ministry.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has closely followed progress in the discussions and hopes to return to China this year for talks with rail ministry officials, said David Crane, the governor’s special adviser for jobs and economic growth and a board member for the California High Speed Rail Authority. China is offering not just to build a railroad in California but to help finance its construction, and Chinese officials have already been shuttling from Beijing to Sacramento to make presentations, Mr. Crane said by telephone.

China is not the only country interested in selling high-speed rail equipment to the United States. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Spain, France and Italy have also approached the state of California.

The state’s high-speed rail authority has made no decisions on whose technology to choose. But Mr. Crane said that there were no apparent weaknesses in the Chinese offer and that Mr. Schwarzenegger particularly wanted to visit China this year for high-speed rail discussions.