History of the Portland-Suzhou Sister City Association
Compiled by Jeffrey Kinkley (former PSSCA Secretary)
Republished February 2019
It all started with a relationship and mutual exchange.
March 1985
David Wu (Wu Zhenwei吴振伟), an attorney at the firm of Miller Nash who will come to serve as a Portland Planning Commissioner (1986-1989) and later represent Oregon’s First District in the US Congress (1999-2011), born in Taiwan of Suzhou parents who completed their emigration to the US in 1961, introduces the idea of a sister city relationship with Portland to Suzhou authorities in a letter of March 5. Other early leaders in the search for a Chinese sister city are John E. “Bud” Clark, Mayor of Portland (1985-1992); Mike Lindberg, Portland City Commissioner (1979-1996); Patrick LaCrosse, Director of the Portland Development Commission (1981-1994); and Dr. Joseph Ha, a Korean American and Nike consultant for global business (1981-1996; subsequently chair of Lewis and Clark University’s International Affairs program) who also assists Mayor Clark’s successful initiatives to establish sister city relations with South Korea (Ulsan, 1987) and the USSR/Russia (Khabarovsk, November 1988). …