THERE are enough foreigners living in Tianjin's industrial zone 50 kilometres outside the city to provide a steady clientele for Charlie's Bar, a little pub tucked away on the sixth floor of an office building. It has high stools, a dartboard, Jameson's and Bushmills, and a framed cartoon over the bar of a haggard looking man saying, "Horses? Wimmin? Hell, no. I was a foreign trader."
The tired foreign traders who seek occasional refuge at the marble top counter "could be any nationality - Swedish, American, English, Bulgarian," said the white bearded proprietor, Charles Winn from North Dakota, an old oriental hand who recalls carrying a revolver when he was resident IBM manager in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
He opened the bar last year when he and his Tianjin born wife, Tien Ho, came to the port city in north China to establish a trading company. Since then they have watched construction proceed at a fast pace all around them in the Tianjin Economic Technological Development Area, or TEDA, the most successful of 13 such zones created by communist China in the last 12 years to attract foreign investment.
American Standard, Honeywell, Wella, Coca Cola, Samsung, Hyundai, are among the world renowned companies which have set up China headquarters on TEDA's tree lined boulevards. The biggest by far is Motorola of America which has invested $1.26 billion since 1992 to manufacture cell telephones, beepers and radio telecommunications equipment for the Chinese and world market.
Many of the foreign managers and consultants commute by fast toll road from the centre of Tianjin where they have access to the conveniences of modern hotels like the Sheraton and the Hyatt, whose appearance on the skyline in the last few years marked the success of the city's campaign, to attract foreign investment. Their wine lists include Dynasty, a wine produced by a Chinese company which, in partnership with Remy Martin, produces 15 million bottles a year from local vineyards.
Some expatriates have renovated and occupied the old houses built when Tianjin was a concession port controlled by the colonial powers. An English executive is currently repairing a grand old Victorian mansion on Racecourse Road which would not be out of place in Epsom.
THERE is a certain historical irony in Tianjin's eagerness to invite foreigners back to the Shanghai of the north, as the city is sometimes called. Its history over the last century or more has been dedicated to getting rid of the intruders who coerced Tianjin, in the Treaty of 1858, into opening its port to foreign trade, legalising the sale of opium and accepting foreign concessions after its forts were overwhelmed by British and French gunboats.
The elegant life the European occupiers enjoyed was seriously disturbed only once, when enraged Chinese killed 16 French men and women, including 10 Sisters of Mercy and three Russians mistaken for Frenchmen. The conflict was stirred up by rumours that the nuns were kidnapping children and sparked off when the intemperate French consul shot at a local magistrate and killed a bystander.
British and French traders and evangelists were joined soon after by Japanese, Germans, Austro Hungarians, Italians and Belgians. Each created a self contained walled commune with schools, hospitals, prisons and residences. They erected solid, European style commercial buildings, some with imposing Corinthian columns like the financial banks on what was then called the Rue de France. Today these edifices remain, so that you can feel you are walking along a London street one minute and a French boulevard the next.
Victoria Road is now called Liberation Street, the coal exchange is Tianjin Communist Party headquarters and the German Club is a library. The Yue Wei Xian Restaurant in which I had lunch with Madame Siquan Xie, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at Tianjin's Nan Kai university, was once the British consulate. "The city policy is to preserve the different styles which make Tianjin an architectural museum," said Madame Siquan.
Some of the opulent grandeur of the colonial days can be sensed in the Astor Hotel, built in 1863. A suite in the hotel is named after its most famous resident, Herbert Hoover, who became US president after living for 13 years in China. George Bush also took a liking to Tianjin. He dined often in the Goubuli restaurant, famous for its dumplings, when he was US ambassador to China.
Foreign banks are back in Tianjin for the first time since Liberation in 1947. Ten banks, including Credit Lyonaisse and Chase, have set up office in the old financial district, where a futures exchange has been reestablished, with prices quoted on Reuters. It is a long way from the early 1950s when Tianjin's business community was hard hit by the new communist government's campaign against capitalism, and 90 per cent of the city's enterprises were classified as "not law abiding" and closed down to make way for heavy industry.
Now, as then, the international presence not only stimulates trade but influences life in the city, which, with a population of 10 million, is the third largest in China. Huge roadside billboards advertising Pierre Cardin and Marlboro tower over choked streets teeming with bicycle rickshaws and cyclists, and lined with boutiques, curio shops, fruit stands and steaming food stalls.
Tianjin, which Marco Polo once described as "this heavenly city", now has more flashing neon lights at night than Times Square in New York. There is a big joint venture disco with an American entertainment company, a bowling alley, singles bars, seven McDonalds, and a super modern Japanese department store. Young people go to Karaoke bars at night.
THERE is talk of a huge luxury resort on the coast outside town with a casino to rival the gambling dens of Macao, though the town's deputy mayor responded last week to a news agency report to this effect by saying that there was a limit to the westernisation process and he would never allow Tianjin to have gambling, which is officially banned in China.
"The biggest change in my lifetime in Tianjin has been the rise in the standard of living," said a young official of the Tianjin Municipal People's Government, sitting on a stuffed chair with lace antimacassars in an elegant official building once a prince's residence with a grandfather clock ticking in the corner. "I can remember ration cards for eggs and pork. Now there is plenty to eat and everyone who wants has a colour television set."
Madame Siquan said that Tianjin, the biggest port in China and the gateway to Beijing 125 kilometres to the north east, hoped to become the "Silicon Valley" of China by developing many new high tech industries. Foreign investment last year was $1.6 billion, seven times what it was 10 years ago. This year it is going to reach the same level.
She acknowledged however that long established city industries, such as the famous "Flying Pigeon" bicycle factory which once supplied the whole of China, faced grave problems. The first joint enterprise in Tianjin was a Sino Danish venture making Bugatti bicycles brighter, lighter and swifter than the "Flying Pigeon" and much in demand by young workers. A Beijing analyst described the factory, which has its own hospital, clinics and shops, as a case study of a big state run concern going broke in the face of intense internal competition. "The Pigeon can't fly anymore," he said.