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Locke's China work complicates bid for commerce secretary
President Barack Obama on Wednesday tried for the third time to fill the vacant commerce secretary position, tapping former Washington Gov. Gary Locke for a Cabinet post that two previous nominees have backed away from.

But Lockes post-gubernatorial efforts to drum up business for an array of companies in the rapidly expanding Chinese market may require steps to reconcile with the administrations ethics policy.
Just another seedy politician ...
It didn't hurt Hillary.
At a late morning press conference, Obama called Locke "the right man for this job" and asserted Lockes background equips him to be "a tireless advocate for our economic competitiveness, and an influential ambassador for American industry who will help us do everything we can -- especially now -- to promote it around the world."
...and that's why he's my third choice.
What's good for Microsoft is good for America ...
Indeed, Lockes personal story as the son of immigrants, his leadership of trade-dependent Washington State and his private sector work makes him tailor-made to head the Commerce Department.

The problem is that Locke, a partner in an international law firms China division, has advocated for Microsoft, Starbucks, and banking, timber and shipping interests in recent years, raising potential conflicts for him as head of a department charged with promoting U.S. trade around the globe.

One of Obamas first acts as president was to sign an executive order barring executive branch officials from working on issues "directly and substantially related" to their former clients or employers for two years.
Which he's already had to pull back a couple times ...
Yet if hes confirmed as commerce secretary, Chinese trade issues -- including some with direct impact on the companies he went to bat for -- are likely to be high on the agenda for Locke, who is the first Chinese-American governor.

Software piracy issues would rank among them. Microsoft and other software developers have lobbied both the U.S. and Chinese governments to crack down on profit-draining practice. On a similar front, Starbucks recently won a trademark lawsuit against a Chinese company using its logo.

An administration official brushed off questions about what steps, if any, would be necessary to ensure Locke complied with Obamas ethics policy. Instead, the official said that Locke didnt act as a lawyer for the companies named in this story, with the exception of Microsoft. The other companies likely were clients of Lockes law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, suggested the official, who did not respond to requests to release a full list of the clients Locke represented in the last two years.
Posted by: Steve White 2009-02-26
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=263532