When Joaquin Lim landed in the northern Chinese city of Dalian a few months ago, a smiling airport official immediately ushered him off the plane and through immigration and customs before the rest of the passengers could even empty the cabin.
When Lim arrived in the airport's terminal, he noticed a huge banner that read: "Welcome to Dalian Respected Teacher." Over the next few days, he was honored at various banquets and given personal tours of Dalian's government buildings and sprawling harbor.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, January 18, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 43 words Type of Material: Correction
Joaquin Lim: An article in Section A on Jan. 11 about Chinese officials learning about American government described Walnut Councilman Joaquin Lim as an economics professor and said that he taught at Cal State Los Angeles. Lim taught business management at the university.
It was quite a welcome for a councilman from Walnut, the small upscale suburb about 25 miles east of Los Angeles.
Lim wasn't there to sign any trade deals or negotiate treaties. But, the 57-year-old college professor nevertheless has had a profound impact on this thriving port city of 6 million people.
Using Walnut as a model, Lim teaches how local government should work in his course at Cal Poly Pomona, and Dalian's Communist Party apparatchiks have been coming for seven years to take notes.
For the Dalian students, it has been a culture clash. They come from a progressive city known for its cleanliness, healthy economy and office parks. But unlike Walnut, the government exerts total control with Internet censorship, no free press and few opportunities for the public to voice opinions or concerns.
During their 10-month course, the students dive into the mundane world of local government -- land-use battles, NIMBYism and customer service as well as council meetings that drag on for hours as residents line up to speak.
Lim has no illusions that his Pomona seminars will bring democracy to Dalian. But he hopes they will in some small way change the mind-set of the bureaucratic, rigid government, making it more flexible to the needs of the public.
"There has to be a paradigm shift in government from the old China when leaders were seen as emperors," said Lim, whose family fled a turbulent China under Mao Tse-tung in the 1950s when he was a young boy. "I'd like them to understand they're not gods, but civil servants."
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Lim began a class last year with a hypothetical question: "What if IBM comes to Dalian and says they want to build a factory with tax benefits and that they want to take you out to dinner?"
After a dead silence amid the classroom full of Chinese bureaucrats, Charles Chen, a Dalian district field officer, cracked, "Yes, I like," triggering a swell of laughter.
