Reads 175-16 Aug. 2018. 219-30 Jan 2019. 312-21, Jan, 2020
62 cities of the U S compete for the investment of one manufacturer of China
Frank Jan. 16, 2017, in Waterloo, Ontario. Canada.
The rational practice of the U.S. mayors lesson democratic players to rationalize the way of thinking, they must recognize that being elected is nothing to be proud of, but rather to be ashamed of, as it indicates that she or he was in low personal quality with deceptive trick to have successfully coaxed voters, unless to be verified by the achievements in the creation of job and revenue. --- Feb. 2, 2017
The evaluation for the crime of Gov-officials is unique, if she or he has no achievements in the creation of job and revenue, they are criminals due to they uselessly occupied governing-position to have wasted valuable time for improving the life of national. --- Jan. 23, 2020
Mayor Sheldon Day of
Thomasville City won in the competition of investment from China among 62 mayors of the US by going to China again and again with
strong determination of striving for the export-items in
his city as copper tubing, steel products, paper products…, but, not
their Children anymore (have to look for job elsewhere).
Mr. Hon. Sheldon A. Day, the Mayor of Thomasville City from 1996 to right now.
Feb, 13, 2014, I once wrote article <R. Rex Parris a Far-Sighted U.S. Mayor Persuades eBus Maker of China into U.S.>.: Mr. R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster City, after enjoyed happiness from helping China’s eBus maker BYD production in own city since 2009, he starts new dream of creating an oasis for Chinese investment in own town, thereby builds Lancaster as largest Chinese corporation area in California and a central hub in the new energy economy.
For accomplishing own
determination, he made numerous trips to China to woo corporate leaders and
government officials with his business-friendly ways. He wants to open a trade
office in Beijing just for own city, and even hopes to build a Buddhist temple
in own town to attract Chinese residents.
More respectable is that, after daily official work, Mayor R. Rex Parris was always busy in home to study the
technologies about renewable clean energy, while, majority of democratic
elected Mayors are eagerly in looking for and busying in the activities of
pleasing voters for enjoying the vanity as Mayor.
In order to get more useful idea from
more participants than regular council meetings, in August 2008, Mayor R. Rex Parris initiated a program
of 'Walk with the Mayor' at Lancaster City Park, to attract residents get to
walk for about one hour with the mayor twice a week and bring up whatever
questions them like.
Two mayors were outstanding among
those politicians who only have desire and instinct to plan on papers for
campaigning the enjoyment of political privilege, but, have no sense and
ability to improve the life of their citizen, besides by all kind of possible
tricks to tax on them.
The practices of two mayors set
up a mirror for evaluating politicians.
The evaluation for the personal
quality of Gov-officials is unique, if she or he has no achievements in the
creation of job and revenue, the harder of the work, the lower of the personal quality, because it indicates that they are in wasting more social resources.
Contents
1.. The outstanding mayors in the United States
1.1.. Mr. Sheldon Day, the Mayor of Thomasville, Alabama
1.2.. Mr. R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster, California
2.. The motivation of the topic
3.. US mayors inspire on social governance
4.. A report from the United States
5.. Sheldon A. Day, the Mayor of the City of Thomasville from 1996 to present day
1.. The outstanding mayors in the United States
1.1.. Mr. Sheldon Day, the Mayor of Thomasville, Alabama
Jan. 16, 2017, I found a good mayor in the U.S., from Youtube video: The U.S. poorer town looks forward to Chinese factories in Mandarin; following is the video screenshots and the translation of the commentary.
He is Mr. Sheldon Day, the Mayor of Thomasville City, Clark County of the United States. The respectable is that he actively strives for creating employment opportunities for his citizen to avoid them from looking jobs elsewhere.
Thomasville City was the one of 62 American cities that once competed for the investment of one manufacture of China - Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group. Faced with fierce competition, Mayor Sheldon Day did not retreat, but, actively strive for; he went to China again and again, totally in four times, until won.
When Golden Dragon North America plant wants to enlarge production lines, Thomasville City was no more land available, faced with new difficulty, Mayor Sheldon Day showed great intelligence and flexibility, he was wisely to look for cooperation from neighboring Town Pine Hill, Wilcox County.
Pine Hill is a small South town, the population is less than 1 thousand, the logging and paper-making was the major industries, but, it has been suffering long abandoned by textile mills and furniture plants, the Pine Hill desperately needs jobs. It located Wilcox County has a population of only 12,000 people, but the unemployment rate is as high as 16.4% that is highest in the State of Alabama, the Locals live in a difficult life. Some shops even closed for sale.
Shop closed for sale in Pine Hill
The suggestion of the Mayor Sheldon Day simply was a manner that sent delicious pies to a hungry people; both sides hit it off happily. Finally, the local governments in different counties jointly funded the purchase of land and to be free for Golden Dragon’s building new production line.
The government of Alabama State funded the construction of bridges and roads to link the production site to the major national transportation networks, and the governments of Federal and State were also jointly to have funded to improve water supplies, sewerage treatment and sewage discharges for the plant.
Thus, the government of Federal, State and Locals jointly removed the entire barriers for Golden Dragon’s building new production line.
Mayor Sheldon Day said that Golden Dragon North America plant is one of the biggest export projects in local. Before, our children cannot find job here, now, the investments likes Golden Dragon have created the opportunities for our next generation to stay in their hometown. Now we're hoping that the biggest export items here are copper tubing products, steel products, paper products, but, not our Children.
The executive vice president of Golden Dragon North America, Mr. Karen Weill who said that: “There many of the people we hired are unemployed before, and now they start making money and spending money, so that local economy improved a lot.
Karen Weill, the executive vice president of Golden Dragon North America
For the reason that Gold Dragon Group builds plant in the United States, Mr. Karen Weill said that: there are many air-conditioning manufacturers in the United States, up to 10,000 miles’ supply chain on the sea is a risk, in particular, the potential risk of blockade or striking. Another risk is to put a lot of money on the water, while the copper is more expensive metals, and also, sometimes, customers need a more flexible delivery time, or even temporarily speed up the date of delivery. In order to truly become a global company, we must have a global layout.
Ms. Laura Lewis is a local worker who works for brass tube packing in the factory.
Ms. Laura Lewis
She said that: “I started with a wage of $11 an hour, every three months, plant will increase salary once, now, I am in $12.25 an hour, two weeks later, I can reach $13 per hour. If the Golden Dragon did not build factory here, I have to leave home to find a job.” She also said that: “the cheaper products are all from China (she means that was in low quality with an embarrassed-smile), but, since working with the people from China, my view on China-made goods have changed. I have seen Chinese people are very concern about their work, and work quality was very important to them."
Since working in factory; local people began to understand Chinese culture that was very unfamiliar before, and some employees even wrote their name on own helmet in Mandarin.
Jennifer in Mandarin on helmet
The executive director of Wilcox County Industrial Development Board, Mr. George Alford said that: “Golden Dragon Group invested $110 million to build factory and buy equipments, and spend millions of dollars each year on payroll. The number of labor force in our Wilcox County is small, so we do not need thousands of jobs to improve our future. We feel that if the Golden Dragon Group can provide about 300 jobs, by the spread of this effect in entire region, our unemployment rate will be halved. It has a great impact on us. This project relates our success in future. It is the hope of Wilcox County; we can overcome poverty and improve high unemployment rate that has been suffered for many years. I think this is like a good marriage, one of my past colleagues said, we got married, we must keep the marriage down. So we have to work together with the Golden Dragon Group.
Mr. George Alford, the executive director of Wilcox County Industrial Development Board
As the number of consumers increased, the business of local restaurant was also booming.
The rational practice of Mayor Sheldon Day made me thinking of another outstanding Mayor in the United States.
1.2.. Mr. R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster, California
Feb, 13, 2014, I once wrote article to introduce Mr. R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of the Lancaster city, California of the United States, who was also many times to China to have successfully persuaded eBus Maker of China into Lancaster for building his city with clean energy. He pays those homeless free one-way tickets out of his city, and trying to keep reckless Mongols motorcycle club out of city.
Obviously, Mayor R. Rex Parris has a sensible mind for that how a qualified mayor should be and how hardly strives for.
Jan. 22, 2017, morning 5:08, when I updating this article, I googled about Mr. Mayor R. Rex Parris and got some information on their official website.
“Lancaster native R. Rex Parris became the City’s third directly-elected mayor in April 2008. His immediate aggressive stance regarding the overall well-being of Lancaster residents quickly generated dramatic results which have gained nationwide recognition. Due to his fervent dedication to progress, strong leadership style and many accomplishments toward the evolution of his hometown, Parris was re-elected in 2010, 2012, and 2016. The most recent election extended his mayoral duties for another four years.”
The webpage post a photo of Mr. Mayor R. Rex Parris.
Mayor R. Rex Parris
Oct. 27, 2013, article Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris has a big business dream: China
reports that: Mayor R. Rex Parris dreams of creating an oasis for Chinese
investment in this Mojave Desert town. He has taken numerous trips to China,
wooing corporate leaders and government officials with his business-friendly
ways. He talks boldly of opening a trade office in Beijing just for Lancaster,
much like the one that California opened this year in Shanghai. And he even
hopes to build a Buddhist temple in town to attract Chinese residents.
He hopes that Lancaster will become the largest Chinese
corporation area in California. This might sound a little ambitious for a city
tucked into a dusty corner of Los Angeles County not exactly known as a beacon
for international commerce. But Parris' plan might just be working.
MAY 13, 2014, article Can
A City Get To Net Zero? Lancaster, California reports that: The most recent National Climate
Assessment supports the urgency Parris feels, but he also sees this as a
good business opportunity. So he is doing all that he can as a community
leader to position his community for survival and success in the world he sees
coming. Becoming net zero, and producing more electricity than Lancaster
uses, is just part of the mayor's overall agenda. He also wants to see
Lancaster emerge as a central hub in the new energy economy.
May 04, 2016, Lancaster
Mayor R. Rex Parris Praises BYD’s New Environmentally Friendly Electric Truck
Line: City of Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris today praised the continued
evolution of BYD’s environmentally friendly Master Plan, after the company
announced plans to bring a full array of electric trucks to the marketplace. When
other truck-makers are aimed directly at one of the key sources of pollutants
in North American cities -- diesel trucks, BYD already builds a variety of
superior electric busses at its North American Manufacturing Facilities located
in Lancaster, and plans to build the new truck line in Lancaster as well.
Now, it was unable to be googled the source of the report on Internet, but, I clearly remember, once in home after work, Mayor R. Rex Parris was always stay in own reading room to study the technologies about renewable clean energy. While, majority of democratic elected Mayors are eagerly in looking for and busy in the activities of pleasing voters, for enjoying the vanity from showing up to public with useless saliva spraying.
More respectable is that his wife and his mother fully support his work. His family is an excellent assistant for an outstanding mayor.
Sept. 20, 2009, article Lancaster
mayor is anything but politically correct - latimes reports that: After
each City Council meeting, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris heads home, flips on
his TiVo and watches a replay of the town hall proceedings. His wife makes
notes of the sections she feels her husband should review, along with
suggestions of what he could have done better: Temper an angry exchange.
August 01, 2008, Lancaster
City Mayor R. Rex Parris gets a hug from his Mother Jeanne Powers: Lancaster
City Mayor R. Rex Parris gets a hug from his Mother Jeanne Powers, 81 years old
as she joins a group walking Tuesday morning with the mayor during a 'Walk with
the Mayor' program that was recently initiated at Lancaster City Park.
Residents get to walk for about one hour with the mayor twice a week, and bring
up whatever questions them like, while
getting some exercise. Dozens of people have apparently been participating in
the program, which started last month and have apparently been
attracting more participants than regular council meetings.
People call Southwestern Ontario, the heartland of manufacturing in Canada - as Waterloo region.
I have been living in Waterloo city for more than 10 years; I felt that the region is the final hope for hard working Canadians with the economy continues in recession.
As my oral survey in workplace, in recent years, there more and more people lost job in Canada; they are gathering in Waterloo region to seek hope for livelihood making, from oil fields, farming area, fishing area, and other cities…
However, in Waterloo region – jobs are in losing with businesses closing or outsourcing.
The sad fact encourages me to think that how to create more employment opportunities and dig the reason what is in causing businesses decline.
Jan. 27 2014, I once wrote article The Fatal DNA of RIM and Canadian Enterprises: “RIM - Research In Motion Limited, a designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions for the mobile communications that headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. As a successful high-tech enterprise, once was the pride of Canada. Now is BlackBerry Limited, its Headquarter is just several blocks away from my home.”
“Recent years, facing new competitors rapid rising, it has been retreating. The bad news are continuous, the sales decline, the stock devaluation, downsizing, the arguments of the privatization or so, every bad news have deeply hurt my nerves.”
“However, that made me most sad is from a gossip, that a second grade pupil said that her parents are both working in RIM, once, to be laid off together, their home will no money pay for mortgage, their new house will be repossessed by bank, She worries nowhere to live?”
“RIM, the total employee is nearly 20% of the population of it headquartered city, although that include the staff who works in the branches of other cities, but big proportion are from locals. So, its rise or fall will strongly impact the life of local community. However, for RIM's declining, besides the families of the founder, the families of their staff, and the governors of Canada, I think that, there are few people would care about.”
“For RIM's decline, people can find many sound reasons, however, I think that, the most fundamental one is the stifling intellectual work environment, which is that suppresses the free exertion of intelligence of the employees without a proper channel for employees expressing their views freely to have damaged the driving force for continuously self-revolution to fit the market that increasingly rapid changes.”
“Such a corporate culture is common in Canadian enterprises, which is just opposite that of smart doing in IBM and German Companies.”
People may blame RIM’s decline to economic recession, however, in the same global economic situation, why there are more cell phone maker growing up, U.S.’ Apple, China’s Huawei, …
As my observation, the main reason is the poor management, rather than economic recession.
According to the experience from 16 years working in Canada, May 18, 2016, I once wrote article How to save Canada’s manufacturers from disappearing, in which, by some real cases of businesses’ closure, I presented sad facts that how poor management killed good businesses, some of them even were simply due to the trouble making of some reckless individual.
In article, I indicate that 3M Canad aves Energy 30% by ISO50001 show the direction for optimizing businesses management in Canada.
In China, as a senior engineer in metal material, I once participated in the drafting of the application documents of the ISO90001 for Oil wells drilling pipe. The deep impression on the ISO documents is that every aspect of the production to be refined and provided concrete steps with formulates specific instructions and regulations. More importantly, each specific operation puts specific person in charge - the responsibilities are clearly assigned to the specific individuals.
The ISO standards are acting as that of powerful business-law regulates the behaviors of the business’ members by tagging responsible on the forehead of individual to be exactly accountable for punishment and reward.
Accurate accountability will dramatically motivate employee’s self-esteem, and the self-esteem will drive them consciously full-hearted work in higher speed with avoiding mistake.
In the practice of ISO, the management is being conducted by the written instructions and to be enforced by written regulations, rather than by the management staff orally according to person accord.
3M Canad aves Energy 30% by ISO50001 also shows huge profit potential that has hidden in Canadian businesses, which can be dug out by an easy and a cheaper way – work performance liked reward under accountability.
For this end, the mayors will play a significant role.
Back to Top
3.. US mayors inspire on social governance
The rational practice of US Mayor Mr. R. Rex Parris and Mr. Sheldon Day inspires me to review about the issue of social governance.
Desire and pursuit of a better life is the instinct of mankind, also is everyone's struggling for. However, the development of reality always deviates from people's hope, and in going far and far away.
Endless wars, endless terror attacks, the world has been deemed as a casino for free play of killing game. Besides those life threats, people have been suffering the infinite loop of the economic or financial crisis, and now is facing dilemma in many aspect…
Whether people agree or disagree, the reality is that, as higher animal, human beings have never been able to enjoy a civilization as that of higher animal should be, but, sustained in the civilization that belongs to lower animal under the Law of the jungle - a law of survival in wolf’s world.
As my view, for such sad reality, the root cause was that ignored the quality control for the people who campaign for or work on social governing.
In fact, there great many of democratic player are in low quality, more desire and ability for enjoying political privilege, less sense and capability for contributing the community.
Every politician would have a wish to positively influence the world, but the result is often counterproductive, especially, for the politicians in low-quality, the more efforts they made, the greater the destruction of the world.
In this regard, the widely respected democracy, in a large extent, has been developed in playing a role as a dirty ladder to assist low quality people easily seizing power and then malfunctioning social governance.The shocking facts revealed by British Chilcot report - Iraq War Inquiry was a perfect proof.
Irrational wars, financial crises, refugee flows..., democracy has developed into the source of evil in harming the world.
I have been questioning about the positive role of democracy, once wrote article to argue that It is high time to end the partisan politics, The Values and Democracy is entwined to castrate France and disorder whole world.
However, the rational practices of US Mayor Mr. R. Rex Parris and Mr. Sheldon Day lesson us that, even if in absurd democratic polity, there are also sensible officials, and even if under irrational democratic polity, as long as active efforts, a rational Gov-official can also make great contribution for society.
Feb. 28, 2016, report A Clash of Cultures at Alabama Factory shocked me very much, the good day of town Pine Hill and city Thomasville was over, due to their gave full of hope of the Golden Dragon plant seems encountered big trouble, it was that union came and organizing workers to fight against plant.
Most of democratic players respect Unions as the great value due to they never concern effective social governing and national’s livelihood making in comparison with rational politician.
Nov. 1, 2016, I once wrote article Margaret Thatcher Changed The UK Forever By Defeating Unions and indicate that:
“There were reports that Britain will soon be developed as fourth large economy in world, for such a achievement, the first contributor should be Ms. Margaret Thatcher, it was she defeated Unions under a rational sense that Unions were attempting to substitute the rule of the mob for the rule of law, so that revived productivity in Britain.”
“Now, in Britain, the goods making is much cheaper than in Canada.”
“Dec. 5, 2015, in article The Strategic Vision for Trudeau Government of Canada, I indicate that: In the Era of agricultural economy, the geographic space is the living space. In the Era of market economy, the market space is the living space, without competitive products; a country will lose living space.”
“Obviously, rational Ms. Margaret Thatcher had hardly created foundation for Britons to strive for living space.”
Back to Top
4.. A report from the United States
Follow report introduced the plight situation of local employment and the happy of local officials for the investment of China’s business. The word "Ni hao" means how do you do, or how are you in Mandarin, which shows welcome for the arrival of guests.
Ni hao, y'all: US hinterlands woo Chinese firms | The Columbian
Gov. Robert Bentley, flanked by Quingmin Li, Consul General China, Houston office, left, and Golden Dragon Copper USA Chairman Changjie Li, pose for photos with company, state and local officials at a May ribbon cutting ceremony during the grand opening of the company 2019s copper tubing plant in Pine Hill, Ala.
June 22, 2014, 5:00 PM
http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jun/22/ni-hao-yu2019all-us-hinterlands-woo-chinese-firms/
PINE HILL, Ala. — Burdened with Alabama’s highest unemployment rate, long abandoned by textile mills and furniture plants, Wilcox County desperately needs jobs.
They’re coming, and from a most unlikely place: Henan Province, China, 7,600 miles away.
Henan’s Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group opened a plant here last month. It will employ more than 300 in a county known less for job opportunities than for lakes filled with bass, pine forests rich with wild turkey and boar and muddy roads best negotiated in four-wheel-drive trucks.
“Jobs that pay $15 an hour are few and far between,” says Dottie Gaston, an official in nearby Thomasville.
What’s happening in Pine Hill is starting to happen across America.
After decades of siphoning jobs from the United States, China is creating some. Chinese companies invested a record $14 billion in the United States last year, according to the Rhodium Group research firm. Collectively, they employ more than 70,000 Americans, up from virtually none a decade ago.
Powerful forces — narrowing wage gaps, tumbling U.S. energy prices, the vagaries of currency markets — are pulling Chinese companies across the Pacific. Mayors and economic development officials have lined up to welcome Chinese investors. Southern states, touting low labor and land costs, have been especially aggressive.
In the case of the Pine Hill plant, tax breaks, some Southern hospitality and a tray of homemade banana pudding helped, too.
“Get off the plane and the mayor is waiting for you,” says Hong Kong billionaire Ronnie Chan.
In March, Dothan, Alabama, held a two-day U.S.-China manufacturing symposium, drawing dozens of potential Chinese investors. On sale were T-shirts reading: “Ni hao, y’all” — combining the Chinese version of “hello” with a colloquial Southernism.
Chinese executives wandered around during a street festival, experiencing Americana by snapping photos of vintage ’60s muscle cars. A Chinese company, in a deal negotiated before the symposium, announced it would bring a 3D printing operation to Dothan.
Among other Chinese projects in the United States that are creating jobs:
— In Moraine, Ohio, Chinese glassmaker Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. is taking over a plant that General Motors abandoned in 2008 and creating at least 800 jobs. The site puts Fuyao within four hours’ drive of auto plants in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
— In Lancaster County, South Carolina, Chinese textile manufacturer Keer Group is investing $218 million in a plant to make industrial yarn and will employ 500. South Carolina nudged the deal along with a $4 million grant.
— In Gregory, Texas, Tianjin Pipe is investing over $1 billion in a factory that makes pipes for oil and gas drillers. The company expects to begin production late this year or early in 2015. It will have 50 to 70 employees by the end of this year and 400 to 500 by the end of 2017.
The United States and China have long maintained a lop-sided relationship: China makes things. America buys them. The U.S. trade deficit in goods with China last year hit a record $318 billion. And for three decades, numerous U.S. manufacturers have moved operations to China.
The flow is at least starting to move the other way. One reason is that in the past decade, the cost of labor, adjusted for productivity gains, has surged 187 percent at Chinese factories, compared with just 27 percent in the United States, according to Boston Consulting Group.
In addition, Chinese electricity costs rose 66 percent, more than twice the United States’ increase. The start of large-scale U.S. shale gas production has helped contain U.S. electricity costs.
And the value of China’s currency has risen more than 30 percent against the U.S. dollar over the past decade. The higher yuan has raised the cost of Chinese goods sold abroad and, conversely, made U.S. goods more affordable in China.
Those rising costs have cut China’s competitive edge. In 2004, manufacturing cost 14 percent less in China than in the United States; that advantage has narrowed to 5 percent. If the trend toward higher wages, energy costs and a higher currency continues, Boston Consulting predicts, U.S. manufacturing will be less expensive than China’s by 2018.
Cost isn’t the only allure. As Chinese companies build more sophisticated products, they want to work more directly with U.S. customers.
“Being close to the marketplace is good for everybody,” says Loretta Lee, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who just opened a shoe factory in Tennessee.
Sometimes, political pressure nudges Chinese firms into investing in America. Tianjin Pipe, for instance, began building its Texas plant after the U.S. imposed sanctions against Chinese-made pipes in 2010, notes Thilo Hanemann, Rhodium’s research director.
Local officials here in southwestern Alabama went out of their way to lure Golden Dragon, which wanted to build a plant to make copper tubing for air conditioners.
At first, the company considered Thomasville, just across the border in Clarke County. But Thomasville didn’t have any suitable sites after Golden Dragon decided it needed three times as much space as originally sought.
“I was almost in a panic,” recalls Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day.
But Day spotted an industrial park in Wilcox County with plenty of space. Day says he didn’t mind the project going to a neighboring county. The plant would employ Thomasville residents, too.
And there was another benefit: Wilcox County — stuck with 15.5 percent unemployment, Alabama’s highest — qualified for extra aid. It landed $8 million in state and federal grants to help build an annex road and sewage lines for the project.
Wilcox County also gave the company 100 acres of a 274-acre industrial park it bought for $1.2 million and a break on local property taxes. And Alabama offered to reimburse the company up to $20 million of its costs for building the $100 million factory. It will get the full amount if it ends up hiring 500 people, says George Alford of the Wilcox County Industrial Development Authority.
Local officials assembled all the public agencies and utilities Golden Dragon will have to deal with — from Alabama Power to the Port of Mobile — in one room on one day so company executives could have their questions answered at once.
The message, Day said, was: “If you come here, we’ll hold your hand.”
A banquet was organized with both traditional Southern fare, such as pinkeye purple hull peas, and Chinese dishes from Thomasville’s New China Buffet restaurant.
When the visiting Chinese were seen devouring homemade banana pudding, “we took them the whole tray,” Day says.
To prepare for future banquets, Thomasville is buying Chinese-style dining tables with built-in turntables.
Still, culture and language can remain a barrier. Local officials hastily replaced a black-and-white banner welcoming Golden Dragon after learning that the colors signified a funeral to the Chinese.
“Nobody wants a faux pas,” says John Clyde Riggs, executive director of a regional planning commission.
Golden Dragon and the future Dothan 3D join two other Chinese firms in Alabama: Continental Motors in Mobile makes piston engines for aircraft. And Shandong Swan USA in Montgomery makes saws for cotton gins.
Alabama and other Southern states have followed the example of South Carolina, which nabbed the first Chinese plant in America 14 years ago when appliance giant Haier built a refrigerator plant in Camden.
John Ling, who runs South Carolina’s Shanghai office, has an empty factory he’s pitching to Chinese firms. It’s been shuttered for four years — since the former owners closed it and moved the jobs to China.
“We will see more and more Chinese projects coming,” Ling says. “It’s at the very beginning.”
Follow are some links of related reports.
Thomasville mayor building economy on metal | AL.com
Thomasville sold rural life to land Chinese manufacturer - Dothan Eagle
Ni hao, y'all: US hinterlands woo Chinese firms | The Columbian
A Clash of Cultures at Alabama Factory - WSJ
Sheldon Day has served as mayor of the City of Thomasville (Alabama) since 1996. He graduated from Thomasville High School in 1978 and attended Patrick Henry Jr. College (now Alabama Southern Community College) in Monroeville, Alabama, before beginning a career in retail management. He managed stores for TG&Y, Inc., for seven years and spent the next seven years with Walmart Stores, Inc., as a Division 1 store manager in Thomasville and as a SuperCenter director in Thomasville and in Georgia. Sheldon was a member of the Thomasville City Council for two terms during his time with Walmart Stores, Inc. Sheldon is a small business owner and works daily to build new business potential in Thomasville and southwest Alabama.
Sheldon is a member of the Alabama Technology Network Advisory Board at Alabama Southern Community College; a past member of the board of directors of the Southwest Alabama Medical Center; a member of the Southwest Alabama United Way Advisory Board; a member of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Council; founding member of the Clarke County Community Development Foundation; and a member and past president of the Thomasville, Alabama, Chamber of Commerce. Mayor Day is a graduate of the 2005 Leadership Alabama class and a past member of the Leadership Alabama Executive Board. He is also a graduate of the Auburn University Economic Development Institute.
Beyond the borders of Thomasville, Sheldon is active in the areas of politics and economic development. He currently serves on the Alabama League of Municipalities Executive Committee, as co-chairman of Governor Bentley’s Black Belt Commission; and he served as a panelist from 2005 through 2012 for the Delta Regional Authority Congressional Caucus on Rural Issues in Washington, D.C. He has been invited to many states across the United States to tell the “Thomasville Success Story” and provide input on rural issues. Mayor Day has participated in numerous business missions in the United States and abroad including to Cuba, China, South Korea, and Brazil.
During Mayor Day’s 19 years of mayoral service, the City of Thomasville and surrounding rural area has seen over $700 million in capital investment and the creation of more than 1,000 new manufacturing and service sector jobs. In addition, the city government and schools have partnered to bring high quality education and innovative career technical programs that have become a model for the state of Alabama and the southeastern United States.
China's rapid development and Sino-American relations have a direct impact on the lives of nearly everyone in the United States. CHINA Town Hall is a national conversation about China that provides Americans across the United States and beyond the opportunity to discuss issues in the relationship with leading experts.
October 5, 2015
The 2015 program featured a live webcast panel discussion with Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton; Sheldon Day, Mayor, Thomasville, Alabama; Daniel Rosen, Founding Partner, Rhodium Group; and Stephen Orlins, President, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Earlier this year, the National Committee published a report with Rhodium Group on Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States by congressional district. Read the full report and find out how much Chinese investment is in your congressional district.
The panel discussed Chinese FDI in the United States. The webcast was followed by local presentations at venues across the country by on-site China specialists addressing topics of interest to the local community. Each program was co-sponsored by the National Committee and a local host. CHINA Town Hall is generously underwritten by the Starr Foundation.
