>>10013477 pb

>>10013477 pb

infiltrators

WisBusiness:Barrett Reflects on China Trip

November 11, 2005

MILWAUKEE – Mayor Tom Barrett lead a delegation of Brew City business, academic and civic leaders on a three-city, nine-day trade mission to China last month.

In an interview with WisBusiness.com this week,Barrett said he was awed by China’s economic power and excited about the potential for trade with the Asian powerhouse and the world’s fastest-growing economy.

“I like the saying that “You either learn to ride the dragon or you feel its fire,” he said. “We want to ride it.”

Brian Clark: Where did you go in China?

Tom Barrett: We were there from Oct. 14-22. We spent three nights in Beijing, then Shanghai and ended up in Ningbo, a city of between 5 and 7 million that most Americans have not heard of. We have an agreement with Ningbo to have friendly relations and to try to have continued cooperation on a number of different fronts. Ningbo is a lot bigger than Milwaukee’s metro area of 1 to 2 million, but we are compatible as sister cities. I was told if you multiply U.S. numbers by five, compared to China, you have the right scale.

Clark: Are there any tangible results to come out of your trip in terms of jobs?

Barrett: That was not the purpose of the trip. I never harbored any illusions that I was going to fly over there and come back with immediate jobs. I don’t think you can make a cold sales call on a country and have them think you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. This was about building relationships.

In that area, I think we had some tangible results. At Shougang, the fourth largest steel company in China, we were able to help facilitate a dinner that included the CEO of the company, my delegation and the president of Rockwell here in Milwaukee.Chinese mayors have a lot more power than here, so I had a lot of cachet. I liked that.

The steel company needs Rockwell’s products as it makes plans to build a new plant and relocate outside of Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics. I’m hoping Rockwell will move up the supply ladder because of this meeting.

We also had a lot of conversations about Harley-Davidson with the mayors of Ningbo. Harley Davidson faces a challenge because many of laws pertaining to motorcycles are local and 170 cities limit the size of engines to 150 cc, which takes Harley out of the picture. And in Beijing, no motorcycles are allowed within the third ring of roads in the city. We raised this issue.

I’ve also written a letter to President Bush, who is traveling to China later this month, to ask him – when he talks about the growing trade imbalance – to discuss Harley. I can’t think of a more appropriate all-American product, which in many ways epitomizes the American spirit.

I’ve asked him to use this as one of his trading pieces to open the doors. Specifically to ask about their use for police departments and even for the Olympic games. To have Harley be a prominent part of the Olympics would allow us to address some of our trade issues, get a good American product into China and open some markets there.

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Clark: What were they surprised to learn about Milwaukee?

Barrett: We blew them away, it is safe to say, with our DVD presentation because it was in Mandarin Chinese and had Chinese writing. They were impressed. We also made the point that Milwaukee is a vital part of this country, that our gross domestic product is larger than a lot of their communities’ GDP and that we are within a day’s drive of 25 percent of the nation’s population.

We made that point because many Chinese tend to think of the United States as Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. We wanted them to know there is a huge area in the center of the country that is willing to be a partner in technology, manufacturing, distribution and after-sales service.Like I said, we want to ride the dragon and work with them rather than feel its fire.

https://www.wisbusiness.com/2005/wisbusiness-barrett-reflects-on-china-trip/

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Mayor Tom Barrett arrives near the scene of the shooting at the Molson Coors headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday in which six people, including the gunman, were killed. The shooter was identified as a 51-year-old man who worked for the brewery, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The shooter was carrying two handguns, one of which had a silencer, the paper reported, citing a police source. SARA STATHAS / REUTERS

MILWAUKEE — A gunman opened fire at the Molson Coors Beverage Co brewing complex in Milwaukee on Wednesday, killing five employees before he was found dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot, the city's police chief said.

No other people were injured in the violence, which erupted about 1 pm (ET) at the sprawling campus of more than 20 buildings, where over 1,000 workers are employed by the beer company in Wisconsin's largest city, the chief said.

"There is no threat at this time, and we will continue to investigate throughout the night," the police chief, Alfonso Morales, told reporters at a news conference hours after the shooting.

Morales said the bloodshed was confined to the Molson Coors complex west of downtown — a facility known to locals as the old Miller brewery — and that "no members of the general public were involved". Miller beer is one of the company's leading brands.

Hours later, law enforcement officers were still combing through each building in the complex to secure the facility, Morales said, adding the deceased gunman was believed to have acted alone.

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Milwaukee mayor loves him some Chinese

Looks like Wisconsin has been infiltrated

https://archive.jsonline.com/business/chinese-investment-a-growing-trend-in-wisconsin-nationally-b99110902z1-228485801.html/

Chinese investment a growing trend in Wisconsin, nationally

October 20, 2013

By John Schmid of the Journal Sentinel

On a sunny afternoon last month, hundreds flocked to the opening of Milwaukee's Global Water Center, a seven-story, $22 million technology incubator that embodies the region's desire to shed its rust-belt label and become a center for the green and global water tech industry.

Gov. Scott Walker and Mayor Tom Barrett waited their turns at the microphone. Cocktail glasses clinked and free beer flowed. "We will look back at today as a day that Milwaukee permanently changed," extolled Mike Lovell, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

This feel-good moment was made possible by investors from China.

The Global Water Center, which houses laboratories, university faculty and more than a dozen water tech companies, wouldn't likely have happened without the infusion of $12million from Chinese investors, who provided more than half the cost of acquiring and renovating the 107-year-old warehouse in Milwaukee's Walker's Point neighborhood.

Private Chinese investment "was critical in financing and closing this deal,"said Dean Amhaus, chief executive of the Water Council, the Milwaukee-based trade group behind the broader civic effort to create the center. The customary funding mix for civic projects of this sort — government tax credits and local philanthropy — wasn't enough by half.

Examples abound in southeastern Wisconsin, 'where Chinese investors have helped finance:

■The new luxury Marriott hotel in downtown Milwaukee on Wisconsin Ave.

■The redevelopment of the former Pabst Brewing complex, which for years stood out as one of the most conspicuous symbols of Milwaukee's urban decay.

■The expansion of the Racine manufacturing plant of jet engine start-up DeltaHawk Engines Inc.

■A 700-student dorm completed in 2010 at UW-Milwaukee, which has applied to use Chinese private investment to offset dwindling state financing.