Government should prepare for foreign-investment wave

Hawaii appears poised for a new round of foreign investment — this time from China.

As the Star-Advertiser reported on the front page last week, there is new interest in Chinese investors buying up local golf courses via an international company called Pacific Links.

That company is owned by Du Sha, who bought four Honolulu courses and is eyeing more on Maui. In Hawaii, the firm is run by Micah Kane, the Kamehameha Schools trustee, who is also a big wheel in local GOP circles after serving in the Lingle administration and as chairman of the state Republican Party.

If all this sounds familiar, it is. Hawaii went through something similar more than 30 years ago with heavy Japanese investment that started with foreign investors picking up golf courses. It moved into more buying of hotels and condominiums and then land, and probably reached its sour note with the spectacle of Japanese real estate tycoon Genshiro Kawamoto’s bizarre Kahala purchases.

So before the first figure in the Hawaii version of Tiger Balm Gardens appears, it is smart to listen to one of Hawaii’s wise leaders, former Gov. George Ariyoshi.

At 86, you could understand Ariyoshi slowing down a tad, but instead, he just returned from a meeting of the Northeast Asia Economic Forum in China where he served as honorary chairman. Ariyoshi was steering Hawaii’s planning as our longest-serving governor during much of the Japanese investment period and appreciates the continuing struggle to say "yes" to business while not rolling over for every golf-crazed millionaire.

Ariyoshi is watching Chinese investment in Hawaii golf courses and while welcoming it, thinks Hawaii needs to think "carrying capacity."

"The number of golfers coming to Hawaii from China is going to be very good, we welcome their arrival — we have to understand our carrying capacity. If we are talking about golf courses, what about our local golfers, if all the courses get bought up?" Ariyoshi said in an interview.

Making deals, Ariyoshi said, is good, but we should also think about the day after the deal.

"It is crucial to ask the question, is this money coming to Hawaii good for us? It is good for the business and it is good for the land owners, but it also has to be something that is good for Hawaii," Ariyoshi said.

Hawaii government, starting with the governor, also has to be in the game of foreign investment, Ariyoshi advised.

"Government certainly has a role whenever something like this happens in large numbers. The governor has to be very concerned and call them in and talk to them about what the expectations of the people of Hawaii will be," Ariyoshi said.

Although Ariyoshi is too much the gentleman to mention it, the ideas of development and investment come down to Hawaii’s ability to handle everything in balance — the carrying capacity — certainly an idea that the current administration could consider when it plows ahead with its Public Land Development Corporation.

Ariyoshi simply said, "We should ask the question, ‘Is this kind of thing good for Hawaii?’"

"For government, it should be from the perspective of: Before you come here and we welcome you, we want to be sure that there is a stake in this for Hawaii’s people."

Perhaps one instance of this already being adopted is a new round of investment in the University of Hawaii at West Oahu.

A group of 36 Chinese investors are putting up $18 million to help finish the construction of the new campus. The investors are doing it through the federal EB-5 visa program, in which foreign investors who put more than $500,000 into a targeted investment that creates new jobs in America, are given green-card visas to the U.S. for themselves and their families.

"The money is sitting in escrow: $18 million to facilitate the completion of West Oahu," said Tom Rosenfeld, president of CanAm Enterprises, the firm coordinating the EB-5 program for Hawaii.

If Hawaii gets new investors and more schools, that should be the sort of capacity we can carry.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.