WASHINGTON — When Davis Wright Tremaine, a Seattle-based law firm, sought to publicize its deal-making capability in China, it issued a news release trumpeting the clout of one of its newest partners, former Washington Gov. Gary Locke.
Locke, the June 2005 release said, "has the star power and connections necessary to successfully do business in China."
Locke, a Democrat who was the nation's first Chinese American governor, had nurtured those connections during two terms as Washington's chief executive, leading four trade missions and promoting major corporate constituents, such as Boeing Co., Microsoft Corp. and Starbucks Corp.
President Obama last week cited Locke's promotion of global trade in nominating the 59-year-old to be secretary of Commerce.
Locke's ties to China probably will be a selling point to advocates of stronger economic relations with the world's largest market and one of its fastest-growing economies.
But Locke also may need to take a harder line on China, said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents U.S.-based manufacturers. That includes pressing the Chinese to stop undervaluing their currency to reap trade advantages, he said.
As a presidential candidate, Obama supported legislation to let the U.S. impose sanctions on China and other countries found to have manipulated their currencies, Tonelson noted.
"Locke will be watched closely, given the extreme views he held on key globalization matters," said Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, a critic of corporate globalization, citing his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and a reluctance to link trade issues to alleged human rights abuses in China.
Locke has represented Microsoft, which has multiple interests in China, including product development and combating piracy. And his law firm, Davis Wright, has represented other "chronic corporate offshorers" that have sent U.S. jobs to China, Wallach said.
David Baca, a managing partner at Davis Wright, described Locke's duties as legal work that was "focused on U.S. and international businesses opening businesses there . . . [and] how Chinese law will apply as we understand it."
On the firm's website, a partial list of clients in its China practice includes several U.S. manufacturers that have opened factories in China and cut back operations in the U.S.
