 Monday in Honolulu, Hawaii and to my left is my co-host Russell Liu and I want to welcome him and all the viewers with a happy New Year of the Rooster. Yes. We are going to be really delving into the world of the new year that started up in the in throughout Asia and wherever they celebrate the New Year of the Rooster and we're going to be talking first about a huge human phenomenon called returning home during New Year. Russell, what does this mean for China and when does it start and when does this end? This is a great coming home. Well a short anecdote though to this. I received a frantic phone call this weekend Ray. It's a friend he's here in Hawaii saying can you please help me. I have a family friends they're stuck in Shanghai they can't get a flight to Beijing they simply can't get a flight because a return flight back to Hawaii flies out of Beijing. Right. And I laughed I laughed because you know it's one of these things that if you don't live in China you're not aware. It's the largest human migration in the world. It happens this time of the year. It happens on the first day of the lunar calendar for the Chinese year and the last day of the celebration when people are returning back to their homes and you know it's a big phenomenon because everybody that works in the cities they all have roots somewhere outside the cities so they all have to go back home and they celebrate New Year and also the spring festivals. So in fact I was talking to some other colleagues in Beijing and they just returned back to work to the offices yesterday. So this is the biggest migration in the world and it's estimated three billion people are on the move so you can't get a ticket on planes. So what did you tell your friends about them stranded in Shanghai? Well I said good luck. I don't think there's much you could do but they didn't manage to find their way and you know they're probably much more frequent to train so if you don't mind getting on the train and it's still very hard to get a train ticket. So what typically happens I told them go and buy the most expensive train ticket in first class buy your own train ticket buy your own little caboose or sit in front that's the best way to get back and also you know they have now the bullet trains all over from Beijing and Shanghai so I said to well maybe everybody's in the bullet train try to get a first class ticket on the O train the overnight train that goes from Shanghai to Beijing and Beijing Shanghai and they did find a ticket so they're lucky knock on what? Well that's great you know 20 years ago when I started to visit China and so forth this phenomenon really didn't exist people did go home but I think what you're talking about is that it's related to the economic development of vitality that there's a lot of migrant laborers you know in the big cities there's a lot of students who are in studying now in universities in Beijing Shanghai Guangdong and also there are special economic zones like Sen Zen that didn't exist the 20 years ago and there they are people from all over China working in special economic zones and really interacting with each other that didn't exist before they were all you know 20 30 40 years ago they used to be in their village for life well you know the interesting thing about it we go through a 20 30-year period with the economic development of China Ray people have money people moving the cities people working cities special economic zones and and also you had the hookah card so you had a restriction travel but now they've kind of done a way of that people could travel freely in China local citizens but the biggest impact I think that I've seen is because the economic rise of China we're not just seeing travel in China many of the fluent Chinese or middle class will travel they'll leave China and they travel to the US and we saw here locally and I'm going to tell you my observations that kind of astounds me to see this growth this economic growth it's spilling across borders you know we live in a world where there's no borders and so this past weekend I went to a celebration it was put together by the mainland Chinese overseas association now this started about 20 30 years ago and my wife's a member of it she's from China and I used to felt bad because there are very few mainland Chinese people here they don't celebrate it a very handful but I went to this banquet they had over 600 people they turn away people well this was the game in town right this was the event that if you wanted to see how China has changed its impact they're all there at this celebration every table was filled and they even brought an entertainer famous entertainment from Beijing who played music so we're seeing that locally in our community but greater more so the impact is I was at Alamoana and I saw that the Alamoana Shopping Center on a Saturday brought up 20 something 20 lying down that's great yeah yeah I was there and you were there so you saw that so they went around they did the traditional lying down said all the vendors to wish them good luck right following that week we saw in Waikiki a similar show of lying down clubs all over wiki so we're seeing something that is the impact of the economic growth of China it's spilling across borders which gets into our topic that we're gonna talk about you know that our trade policy so forth now you bring up a very good point because traditionally when we talked about the Chinese in Hawaii they came from one area which was in the south the Guangdong area and they migrated here from you know the middle of the 19th century the Chinese were in the plantations they're working they were in trade and so forth and even as late as the 50s and 60s it was more or less concentrated in Chinatown through the Guangdong you know kind of schools or and it was heavily Cantonese the language and now you have a quite a rise in people from the mainland who are Mandarin speakers correct so so so language is a big change from just 20 30 years ago and the other is culturally they're coming from bigger cities that usually did not see them before from Beijing Shanghai so forth in in Hawaii now these people who attended the big celebration would you say they're you know business people are their students are they you know tourists what kind of mix are they what's a very good question right I think the first thing it raises language and you know I'm amazed because previously 20 30 years ago you only heard Cantonese right and most of her were more labor type right from Zhong San traditionally where they had ties with the the Chinese here but now it's Mandarin I'm going to safeway the next safeway I hear Mandarin so I go everywhere I hear Mandarin and it's amazing that we're seeing a shift you know with with the shift of people shift of humans coming here that means the shift of capital you know that's coming here money it's coming here and even you know as a child when I heard the words Gumi Fat Choi I thought that meant happy New Year in Chinese but of course that's Cantonese yes it's not she didn't quite laugh which is that which is the Mandarin way so we're seeing more and more money coming from not the traditional old generational ties placed like jokes on we're seeing jokes on it's really not a big city okay that but we're seeing come from Beijing Wuhan and I just had a meeting the other day with a Chinese developer who got his green card I understand from the EB-5 program he's done some hotels in California with through the EB-5 program finding investors from China he's had once a sexual project that closed out near the Makaloy area near Don Kilie and I'm sorry excuse me by Walmart and he's doing another development with the EB-5 and he even has a showroom in Waikiki shopping Plaza and he's not only bringing Chinese money he's bringing Japanese and Korean investors who want to who want to invest in the US so he's from Wuhan so we're seeing that's the city that you know of course is an industrial city you know in the middle part of China so that's a name that you know I used to know very much but it's not a name that would resonate you know 20 30 years ago and nobody you would never meet a person from Wuhan you think where would this person come from exactly and and so we're seeing that you know and then I and you know we're seeing Morphless and and he is coming to this town and developing bringing money and you know so we're seeing a different kind of Chinese now but we're seeing the effects of a global world more and more fluent Chinese are coming here investing money so back to the dinner I just wanted you to comment you know what was the makeup of the people you just said that there was that a profile of a business person entrepreneur you know coming out like a first-generation coming out and then really going you know full speed ahead on projects real estate and so forth so are they all real estate connected are they going to be going into other areas that Hawaii really needs like high-tech or you know products for exporting back to Asia what do you think well you know I think it's weird the first wave of investments going to be really real estate because that's the first basis of wealth for Chinese having property real estate I think for this economy we're not so much business-friendly as maybe in other states we don't have heavy manufacturing we don't have Silicon Valley but I'm hoping that if the real estate they come in here it's higher cap high and capital but if the state realizes that you know you have a really interesting network of people you're having Mark Zuckerberg who is a favorite in China now making his home in Kauai we need we need to better networking these opportunities the Chinese will come but we need to figure ways we need to diversify our economy that gets me another point so this is part of it is the economic part of aspect of Hawaii and the fact is that you know tourism we could depend on that at one time but with the many destinations around the world being developed with internet the Chinese were the biggest travel group tourism group and spend the most money they're finding other place not only Hawaii the also the other aspect is that you know with that the Chinese are starting to look at investing other places I'm San Francisco has a great program to attract the Chinese investors the Silicon Valley is moving into the city but again these are new industries that we should look at you know to put computers today internet you can work just one any place in the world it's it's how we pick and choose but you're right about you know within China itself that if you saw the types of industries the top 100 billionaires many of them are in real estate like Wanda for example Italian but others are in the companies that we think of more as Chinese like the Huawei is the hires of the nobles you know more high-tech kind of companies but they're the brands that are coming out to the US and and we were not really seeing what the great investments in mixed-use or commercial developments are happening Shanghai Beijing and other other cities I think what's there they're really working hard and getting that experience within China and then going outside two cities but you're correct that there are other cities like San Francisco or Seattle or LA or the West Coast or even Las Vegas that's really really promoting their cities for investment by Chinese and really rolling out the red carpet so we are of course a tourist destination but how can we make that one more level for an investment well I think I think what we have to look at a core strength there right one of the core strengths that we have here we're an Asian culture city so there's a comfort zone like the Japanese travelers that became investors we welcome that so we should do the same with the Chinese but what I think is important is that we don't have a Harvard here we don't have an MIT but we have great preparatory education college preparatory education marital school for example has now come out with an immersion program for the Chinese language we're seeing of course Pono has a well center Yolani school has this the innovation center which is very very key and we'll go back and delve more into the role of preparatory education in attracting investment or as part of a whole strategy in one minute hi this is Jane Sugimura I'm the co-host for condo insider and we're on think tech Hawaii every Thursday at three o'clock and we're here to talk about condominium living and issues that affect condominium residents and owners and I hope you'll join us every week on Thursday Aloha this is Kaley Akina with the weekly a Hana Coco let's work together program on the think tech Hawaii broadcast network Mondays at two o'clock p.m. movers and shakers and great ideas join us we'll see you then Aloha hello my name is crystal let me tell you my talk show I'm all about health it's healthy to talk about sex it's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about it's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it so I welcome you to watch clock talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life join me come back to think tech Asia and rolling out the red carpet for investors from China and Russell was just talking about before the break on the role of preparatory education to really be part of our strategy and to create a comfortable investment climate for Chinese entrepreneurs and you were talking about your Lani Marino Pono Hall these are all kinds of schools are now doing immersion programs in Mandarin cultivating you know relationships so that there's more children coming and they they're tiger moms maybe maybe in the same neighborhood you know as part of the families that are coming to stay with them or or at least support them when they're in school now this whole preparatory education part it has has it just grown like organically or is there some kind of strategy in mind all right you know you know I've been in Chinese for I mean Beijing for 13 14 years and I also teach at law schools and I teach university students and what I've seen is that the growth is because China had a going out policy in 2001 they want the Chinese companies to go out establish themselves outside in the western world very important because you know to get to the next level like the US in the 1930s we had the growth of the multinationals with Coca-Cola with IBM all that wouldn't be possible without education and the buzzwords in China's innovation you know it's very hard in a Chinese system because there's so many few seats for students in college good colleges you're talking about beta beta all the good schools so the other thing is that the Chinese started a language policy over 30 40 years ago with students in the primary school level started to learn English as a core requirement so they have this English language thing the Chinese government knew that the language of business English so fast forward now Chinese companies need to go outside they need human resource they need the capacity ability and the capability of human resources to take the Chinese companies to the next level so they can have middle management and upper management so the role of the education is very important so now parents are starting to see that and they send their kids out from started from a high college level now it's high school now it's middle school and I'll give a little anecdote I've been contacted by groups to help them to bring kids here what they want to do is they want to have some English learning classes that come here during the summer and they want to have time with American students to practice their English and guess the age of the kids why don't you take a guess oh eight nine ten years old no kindergarten so you know where I'm coming from where I'm saying wow this is not a free way to build an educational industry travel industry where they come with their moms to bring the kindergarten kids and until they grow up you've got good 15 years for them to come back every year starting educational programs and of course there's so much clean air and a great environment cleaner and another thing knock on wood they're less and less going to Europe because of the terroristic things and so this becomes a very ideal place we have direct flights we need more hotel rooms but again these are things that it's a it's a special niche so with that comes people who have money children and they get to mix with our kids and possibly if we planned this right at somewhere along the line we need to in our high school system have more innovation centers like the 180 Eolani school where Chinese kids could come for the summer or the holidays learn the English and and do some innovation projects and these are great things that we can capitalize on so well education is is a great export market when you think about it because it's not polluting it's it's you know knowledge based and we have great teachers and many many teachers throughout Hawaii but we're talking about the new year and also during the last week there's been developments with the new president and the whole Asian region there was a visit by Defense Secretary Mattis to South Korea and Japan and also interactions with China before that at Davos Xi Jinping having a great reception there as a world kind of leader at that conference and what is the view from China dealing with as we're spent two weeks now two weeks with the new administration any any signs that that the governments in Asia are responding or reacting in certain ways well I think I think for the governments in Asia we're talking about Korea and Japan Vietnam all these countries Singapore you know they're taking a very cautious attitude because remember China is in the backyard big trading partner South Korea's biggest trading partner is China it's a big trading partner with Japan so this is a delicate balancer but I think we've got to go back to prior to the election prior to President Trump and and you have to remember he accused China of manipulating his currency he accused that China was stealing its jobs away that he's going to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods we had also the TPP right so I think which the U.S. under the new administration is not really exploring anymore which has grabbed it but what does this mean for China well China has been planning ahead with this it's been forging ties closer to Central South America plans to build a massive railway to for the for goods to be moved across Latin America so that China can move things from the both oceans across and so there's a lot of things going on but I but the really key turning point to talk about Davos this was China's stage and President Xi Jinping stated something that I think was no surprise he says we support free trade we support globalization and he said that China is going to do everything you can to promote trade investment to liberalization and his reasoning was that many of the problems from the world today is not caused by economic globalization he said because whether you like it or not globalization is the big ocean you cannot escape from because with the internet everybody sees things everybody has knowledge so goods are moved freely across borders so we come to a new age where in China's whole thing is they welcome President Trump because he is believe not he is putting China on the stage now we're going to see alliances shifting we're going to see countries having to choose and now europe is going to get close to China with again with President Trump's announcement that we're not going to support NATO the financial end of it so again all this is is playing to the hands of Chinese that means that they become center stage that means that this is going to be the catalyst for them to be a global leader more so and so again these are things that validates Xi Jinping's power in China he's going to be there for a while so all these things are making China actually much more relevant and much more important in today's world in the symbolic area that the defense secretary chose South Korea Japan as first countries to visit I think does reflect a strong feeling within the administration that it has to bolster those relationships and now one place that's been quite recently is North Korea and of course China has has kind of a supportive role in in with North Korea as I think China is the only friend it has and so but it has been quite and that's South Korea and both Japan are really really sensitive to any North Korean missile launches and so forth the other place that of course China is sensitive on the other side is that that the high altitude radar missile network in South Korea that they see as looking into China looking into you know way into Chinese space so again the first visits were more of a security kind of symbolic impetus from the Trump administration not trade however everything that China has been doing has been about trade has been about economics for for the region so but you're correct that things are still being formulated still being discussed there's going to be a lot more I guess discussions as we as we go forward but it's but it's interesting that you know there has been already a ambassador named for the US side going to Beijing the governor from the Midwest and and I think that that's a sign that Trump considers a very strong person in Beijing to really work with the Xi Jinping government well I think that's a good observation about having some for the Midwest because remember that's what carrot President Trump the election the Midwest the key states blue states but but I think you have to take a look and understand the Chinese culture and history thousands of years it has really not gotten into wars outside of the borders except for the Korean War it's been a nation that it has a long-standing civilization education much more important economy the money is more important and and the military analysis say that not to 2030 will China be able to catch up with the US military so I think China understands that and if you look with the the liberal policy for Chinese students to go abroad you have three quarter million students that are going to college in the US so what are they doing they're actually building a capacity they're building a human resource capacity and capability so that they can take the Chinese companies outside of China and to manage the Chinese companies and that's the key to where the Chinese are headed not militarily more economics so again with Trump's presidency I think China is happy because it's time for them now to go center stage it's time for them to advance globalization economic policies with Europe afraid of Putin who better to have on your side well and and going back to your point about middle managers and so forth the thing about Japan right now is that it's being criticized for not creating jobs in the US and so there's been a great program by others to really send the soft bank presence on others but also there was the head of Alibaba in the US talking about new jobs so so there is also another line that China is going to be working on to create plants and manufacturing and new jobs in particularly in the in the Midwest for Americans to be employed by Chinese companies or investment investors in that region and you're right we talked about a previous show about Fuyang glass the largest automotive glass company and they decided to to bring the glasses to the US the industry and the Chinese are very smart because I used to be with a Midwest law firm it's their Beijing office and and you know the day would come I said that you know the Chinese are going to come to the Midwest and they're going to create jobs and I used to fly back and flights between the Midwest and Beijing I would be astounded by a number of engineers that were going from from China to the Midwest to work in programs and really they're building the human capacity the technical the middle management I see kids also young kids this is 10 years ago they would send them a month in Ohio at some school for language so again it's interesting how China takes a more of a long-term viewpoint very pragmatic and I think Japan is in the right thing but I think for Japan I think what they need to do speed up the curve is a language capability because you know when it comes down to it I'm saying culture and language you know is a key and perhaps like you said for a college for the high school they'll even going into kindergarten maybe this should be a reciprocal program for Hawaii children to go to Wuhan and Beijing Shanghai and study there and then you know get immersed in Chinese culture and language and become employed by investors in Hawaii yes and then that that's what will allow investors come here see that your language capability and that's very important because when your language capability