Carlisle Hand-Delivering Invites to Asia Leaders
Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle is in Asia hand-delivering invitations to a sister-city conference to be held in September as a “precursor to APEC.”
Speaking to Civil Beat by phone from Taiwan, Carlisle said his two-week trip “gives us this chance to say, ‘Hey, the leaders of the world are going to be here. It’s really important to us and your full and complete participation, including coming to the sister-city conference in September, which is going to be in Honolulu.”
Leaders from 21 nations will be in Honolulu in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which is expected to generate $120 million in revenue for the state.
“For every mayor who I saw, or deputy mayor, I gave them a personal letter or personal invitation for them to come, which is also what I did in Korea,” Carlisle said, referring to a May trip.
Carlisle will be in Taiwan and China until June 20. He left Honolulu on June 4 without making any public pronouncements about the trip. His interview with Civil Beat represented his first public statements about his venture, at least to Hawaii media.
Municipal governments and businesses in China and Taiwan are paying $16,500 for the trip. Joining Carlisle in Asia are his wife, City Council member Stanley Chang, the city’s director of Economic Development, a city international relations staffer and a former president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.
He said he has spent a “small part” of his trip sightseeing, including visiting the National Palace Museum, Yangmingshan National Park and a Chiang Kai-shek memorial. The first “real business” of his trip came in a meeting with a China Airlines executive, he said.
“The issue of visas for the Taiwanese was something that was a matter of great interest to them, and a matter of concern,” Carlisle said. “They feel it would be important to get at least the same treatment that mainland China gets, and they don’t get it right now.”
Carlisle says he plans to continue exploring the issue by reaching out Hawaii’s congressional delegation, as well as state leaders, when he returns to Honolulu.
“I was more than happy to let them know that I would do what I could to try to assist them in that way so that they could get over to Honolulu as easily as they can go to Europe and other places, without the restrictions we have on them,” Carlisle said. “Clearly, we have something that we’re interested in, too. Last summer, direct flights from Honolulu to Taiwan had been suspended.”
Next, the mayor heads to China, where he will attend the Shanghai Film Festival.
“We have an enormously successful film industry in Hawaii,” Carlisle said. “We want to do everything we can to promote it, not just on the artistic side but also on the business side of it.”
Carlisle says he has focused on advancing Honolulu’s global standing.
“The big-picture way is essentially for us to establish relationships with the leadership of these very, very significant economies,” Carlisle said. “For them to have face-to-face contact with people in Hawaii … we can convince them to essentially further those ties.”
Carlisle says his goals for growing the city’s tourism appeal and economic standing are part of a three-pronged approach that also include turning Honolulu into the “Geneva of the Pacific.”
“Ultimately, we’re trying to convince them that we can also be the Geneva of the Pacific where — if they want to speak to someone from Canada, the United States, Mexico — instead of going directly there, meet in the middle and then we can broker arrangements on what would be considered more neutral territory,” Carlisle said. “You get the heart of the Pacific, the Hub of the Pacific and the Geneva of the Pacific, which is the long-term goal for everybody.”
