APEC comes to Berkeley!

Fireside with METI Minister Nishimura; Clausen Conference and more

Friends, at last, it’s here - APEC Week in San Francisco. Dignitaries are arriving. Road closures are in effect and much of SoMA is cordoned off (GIS map courtesy of Mayor Breed’s Twitter). An estimated 20,000 people will come, so about half of the most recent Dreamforce. A lot of meetings, and side meetings, will happen. (Even a delegation from Iowa that hosted a young Xi Jinping is coming!)

Your Muni 38R (Geary Rapid) gets in the spirit

What is APEC, you ask? APEC is short for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. APEC was formed in 1989 to promote cooperation and dialogue on economic and trade issues between what are now 21 member economies. Viet Nam was the most recent to join, joining in 1998.

So yes, China *and* Taiwan *and* Hong Kong *and* Russia are all members. The aforementioned Xi Jinping will attend. Vladimir Putin will not, but reporting indicates other Russian officials will.

Is APEC a trade forum? Yes, as a forum for ideas and practices, but it’s not an FTA bloc like TPP TPP11 or NAFTA USMCA. APEC is described as consultative - by referring to members as economies, and not nation-states, it sidesteps some of the trappings of nation-state negotiations and positions itself as a convener and incubator of ideas.

APEC scaffolds over the course of the year, and Detroit (in May) and Seattle (in August) also hosted meetings. Ministerial meetings in San Francisco are to be held November 14-15.

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With some 80 minister-level, cabinet-level officials in town, naturally we wanted to invite some across the bay to UC-Berkeley.

With that, I’m delighted to share four upcoming events happening on the UC-Berkeley campus this week:

• Wednesday November 15 from 12:30-13:00: METI Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi comes to the Haas School of Business!

This is a special cross-campus collaboration between the Clausen Center at Haas School of Business; the Berkeley APEC Study Center; the Center for Japanese Studies; the Institute for East Asian Studies; and Berkeley SkyDeck.

Minister Nishimura will discuss measures Japan is taking to foster entrepreneurship, and sit for a fireside chat with Acting Dean Jenny Chatman, known for her work on culture and cultural transformation.

The event registration link is here. I will have the pleasure of emcee’ing the event. Big thanks to Clausen for hosting and to our various program partners.

Sound familiar? Yes, I wrote about METI’s MOMENT conference, and Minister Nishimura’s remarks, in my last edition.

• Tuesday November 14 14:30-15:45: YAB. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia

This comes courtesy of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies, in partnership with the Berkeley APEC Study Center, Institute for East Asian Studies, Clausen Center, the Malaysian Students Association and the Government of Malaysia. Prime Minister Ibrahim’s remarks will be followed by Q&A with Prof Vinod Aggarwal.

The event will be at Banatao Auditorium.

• Wednesday November 15 9:00-10:30 - Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia.

Again, this comes courtesy of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies. The event will be in Banatao Auditorium.

• Saturday November 18, 09:00-17:00 - Clausen Conference

After APEC wraps up, the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy will hold its 4th biennial Conference on Global Economic Issues: Deglobalization and Fragmentation. The conference will be in Spieker Forum at Chou Hall at the Haas School of Business. Registration is here. I’m particularly looking forward to the panel on semiconductors.

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We got a bit of a preview over the weekend in Palo Alto, where Minister Nishimura spoke at the opening ceremony for a new METI-supported Japan Innovation Campus in Palo Alto. The facility is meant to be a hub for Japanese entrepreneurship in the Bay Area. It is already home to 5 Japanese startups, and will host other co-working members.

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Last edition I closed with Cannonball Adderley’s version of Autumn Leaves. The leaves linger in lovely hues of red and orange, so I will share another version of the standard, featuring the pairing of Chet Baker and Paul Desmond. Both are arguably more famous for their pairings with other artists (Baker with Gerry Mulligan; Desmond with Dave Brubeck), and it was nice to find this pairing.

Onward and upward,

Jon