Asia

MINNEAPOLIS - United Airlines, Continental, and All Nippon Airways applied for antitrust approval on Wednesday so they can work together more closely on flights across the Pacific. The three carriers already sell tickets on each other's planes as partners in the Star Alliance, which Continental joined in October. But they want to form a joint venture that would strengthen their financial ties. If their immunity application is approved, they would jointly manage trans-Pacific activities, including schedules, prices and sales.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is planning to lead a trade mission to India, he said Tuesday, in what would be his second international trip this year. O'Malley said the purpose of the trip is jobs and that he hopes to go "before the year's end. " "We're working on it," O'Malley said. "We promote the competitive strengths of Maryland. " He listed life sciences, biotech, information technology and health care as those strengths. India is Maryland's 12th-largest trading partner, and the state is host to branch offices for five Indian companies, according to the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

President Barack Obama is to board Air Force One today for a trip to Asia, his first visit to the region since he took office. Obama will stop first in Tokyo, where he will deliver a major speech on his Pacific Rim policy and also meet with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Other countries on the itinerary are China, Singapore and South Korea. Obama will use the weeklong trip to strengthen ties to Asian leaders and send a strong message that the U.S. is "an Asia-Pacific nation and we are there for the long haul," as one administration official put it. Obama will need willing Asian partners as he works to combat nuclear proliferation, reduce the threat of global warming and invigorate the world economy.

More than 20 percent of my Baltimore factory's sales are exports, and we want more. We ship to 35 countries; however, that is not good enough. Developing new markets to sell our sheet metal fabrications, wire baskets, and wire forms to new markets will grow jobs in Baltimore and strengthen my company's base. That's why I accepted an invitation from Gov. Martin O'Malley to accompany him and other Maryland officials and business leaders to Asia in June. This trip was a startling eye opener for me. I came home shocked with how advanced our economic rivals are. My major observation is that we have some very tough, smart, aggressive competition.

Waverly Inc. announced yesterday that it had bought a string of medical publishing and distribution properties in Europe and Asia for a total of $3 million.The Baltimore-based medical journal and textbook publisher acquired two German professional journals that focus on "natural" or alternative treatments, such as acupuncture. The journals, with a combined circulation of about 30,000, had sales of about $500,000 a year, said E. Philip Hanlon, Waverly's chief financial officer.Waverly also bought Germany's leading medical test preparation publisher, Mediscript, which has sales of about $500,000 a year.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Call it what you will -- the Asian flu, meltdown, deflation. The financial turmoil that began in Thailand six months ago has spread and debilitated the tiger economies in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and rocked the financial markets in Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan.While the U.S. media remainfixated on what we Asians call America's "geisha" scandal in the White House, there is a human story imploding in Asia that could have a profound impact on our global village.

Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section incorrectly listed a performance in the schedule of the Peabody Institute's Opera Theatre and Symphony Orchestra. The groups will perform Haydn's "The Perils of Fidelity" on Nov. 18-20.The Sun regrets the error.The big musical event this season in Baltimore takes place outside Baltimore. It will be the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's first trip to Asia -- a four-week tour this October and November that will take the BSO and its music director, David Zinman, to cities in Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Asia this week, she will fundamentally and profoundly change the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. The "Iraqification" of foreign policy under President George W. Bush permeated strategic thinking during the last eight years and undermined the United States' standing around the world. As the tides of power shift from the West to the East, the United States has been stuck in the sand. Mrs. Clinton's decision to go to Asia for her first overseas trip underscores the growing geopolitical significance of the region and a strong desire to rebalance American engagement.

Beijing. -- America's frustrated in Asia these days.The U.S. triumph in the Cold War in Europe has been quickly tempered by a wide range of trans-Pacific conflicts with newly self-confident Asian states increasingly willing to defy America's will.Many in Asia believe that America's problems in the region are bound to multiply unless the country adopts a far less haughty approach as it moves into what has been dubbed the "Pacific Century.""The crux of the problem is, you have a missionary, messianic zeal, which is not equal to the task of changing the world," Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father and senior minister, told The Sun in a recent interview.

It is a holiday Tuesday night in fashionable Shinjuku in Tokyo, but there are only two Americans at the Shakey's Pizza shop.Another bad night for an American company trying to make it in Japan?Hardly. The place is packed mostly with young affluent Japanese -- every one of them gobbling away.In many respects, their numbers are a wordless tribute to the success U.S. fast-food companies are having marketing themselves in Asia.While the major chains have been in Japan for 25 years, even smaller players are showing up in droves, parlaying profits from the status-symbol image of American tastes.

Patching potholes and balancing Howard County's or Maryland's budget may seem far removed from visits to foreign and exotic places, but several local elected officials traveled overseas this spring, visiting places as diverse as Israel, Turkey, northern Europe and Asia. County Executive Ken Ulman, a Democrat, spent a week in Israel, and Del. Gail Bates, a Republican, made a similar trip to Turkey, both invited and financed, at least in part, by local groups with ties to those countries interested in building good relations with American officials.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. led trade missions to Singapore, China and Israel. His lieutenant governor, Michael S. Steele, went to Ghana, South Africa, Paris, Barbados and Israel. Former Gov. Parris N. Glendening took overseas trips with an aide who would later become his wife, and former Gov. William Donald Schaefer traveled to Europe, the Soviet Union, Canada, the Middle East and Asia. All of them raised some eyebrows, but it is Gov. Martin O'Malley's recently concluded trip to China, South Korea and Vietnam that seems to be getting the most scrutiny.

According to your story ("O'Malley plans more travel to foreign nations," June 15), Gov. Martin O'Malley is the target of predictable attacks from political opponents who evidently think Marylanders don't understand our prosperity and security depend on active engagement in world. The truth is that Governor O'Malley, as did his predecessors, including Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., recognizes that Maryland companies and universities need to be more integrated and visible around the world.

What hypocrites we be! We expound the virtues of shipping millions of tons of coal to stoke the fires of Asia — with a handsome profit to us while abetting Asia's environmental disaster ("Coal exports through port booming," June 12). Yet we revile coal as a means of addressing our energy needs here in the U.S. Seems like an international application of the familiar point of view, "not in my backyard. " Paul Butler, Street

Fresh from a 10-day trade mission to Asia, Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday he hopes to make more foreign trips during his second term. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have requested a detailed accounting of public money spent on the expedition. O'Malley said the trip to China, South Korea and Vietnam was good for $85 million in deals between Asian and Maryland businesses, amd spoke of future travel to India, Africa and Latin America. "You can't really be effective as a governor in a global economy … unless you are engaged abroad and doing things that only the governor's office can do," the Democratic governor told reporters in Annapolis.

The delegation accompanying Gov. Martin O'Malley on his Asian trade mission includes at least one lobbyist. And the e-mail from her Annapolis firm this week was almost boastful. "As far as we know, Hannah is the only registered lobbyist on the trip and we are extraordinary pleased that she has a chance to represent our client and our firm," the chief operating officer of the government relations division at Alexander & Cleaver wrote to clients. "If you have any important messages that you want her to deliver to the Governor, please contact her before Sunday!"

TOKYO -- President Clinton, as he heads to Asia today for a multilateral summit, will probably be very glad to get out of the United States for a few days.But his party's defeat in Tuesday's midterm elections may help him get what he wants from the Asian leaders he will meet next week. In navigating the sensitive waters of Asian diplomacy, humility can only help.Mr. Clinton will participate in a Nov. 15 summit of leaders of 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific region at the Indonesian resort town of Bogor near the capital, Jakarta.

Maryland companies and the state have secured deals with Chinese firms worth more than $45 million, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Thursday during his 10-day economic development mission to Asia. Tasly Group, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, plans to invest $40 million for a plant in Montgomery County, which would be the largest investment in Maryland by a Chinese firm, according to the state. Tasly plans to open a 430,000-square-foot plant and training center for traditional Chinese medicine in the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center.