Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
liberal internationalism that is at the heart of modernity, the market, even
democracy itself. The juxtaposition with the contained parish of Old
Chinatown is striking, for Concord Pacific Place - note the peaceful hands
across the Pacific allusions in its name - is fully cosmopolitan, outward look-
ing, the world its investment oyster, its very first towers in the early 1990s
advertising high-speed internet linkages as a prominent sales feature. For
such capitalists
sans frontières
routes seemingly trump roots. They, perhaps
more than anyone else, live out in their daily lives a 'new mobilities paradigm'
(Sheller and Urry 2006). The oppressed victims of critical race studies meet
freewheeling
homo economicus
, agent of a globalizing Chinese modernity.
As old Chinatown expresses Canada's exclusionary past and essentializ-
ing multicultural present, Pacific Place and CityPlace manifest one face of
the nation's future. Concord Pacific and the Li family are here by invitation,
as part of Canada's own aspiration to be a full partner of the Pacific Rim
economy. Recently arrived Chinese-Canadians cannot convincingly repeat
the post-colonial aphorism that 'we are here because you were there'. Their
entitlement is even stronger: 'we are here because you invited us'. They are
not merely tolerated by the state, but welcomed, valued as the harbingers of
global enterprise (Ong 2006).
As early as the 1960s, British Columbia politicians were casting an eye to
the economic potential of the Pacific Rim nations. Federally, the liberal
internationalism of the Pearson and Trudeau years assembled the legislative
and diplomatic infrastructure to establish a trans-Pacific network.
Subsequent trade missions by municipal, provincial and federal delegations
to East and Southeast Asia, hopped between Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei,
Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, putting out the message that Canada,
and especially its Pacific province of British Columbia, were open for busi-
ness. Meanwhile, an ideologically driven British Columbia government
assembled an investment-friendly environment, provoking tough labour
struggles through the recessionary years of the early 1980s. A familiar ingre-
dient in this neo-liberal economic agenda was Expo 86, a six-month long
world fair sponsored by the provincial government with federal and corpo-
rate aid. Expo was a transparent and successful culmination of an extended
foray into the Pacific arena, an appetizer to entice trade, investment, tourists
and potential settlers (Ley and Olds 1988). Sale of the entire property by
the provincial government to the billionaire Li family at the close of the fair,
in preference to a local bidder, was a logical conclusion to a decade of
courting East Asian capital. The
entente cordiale
across the Pacific was fur-
ther cemented by the appointment of David Lam (husband of Dorothy
Lam), an early immigrant from Hong Kong in 1967 and subsequently a
successful real estate millionaire and generous philanthropist, as Lieutenant-
Governor of British Columbia, the Queen's official representative in the
province.
20
The same year, 1988, Li Ka-shing purchased the Expo site.
