By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES — This story demonstrates the increasingly intimate tie between the local and the global.

It begins in Los Angeles, extends to Taipei and winds up in Beijing — and it all started on Sept. 18, when the City Council held a dedication ceremony in downtown Los Angeles for a new local monument — the Sister City Direction and Distance Sign.

The intention of this municipal totem was harmless enough: to draw attention to L.A.'s many happy relationships with cities the world over. The monument has arrows pointing toward those cities and each records the distance in miles. Had the city fathers simply named each city and left it at that, everything would have been fine.

Trouble erupted, however, over the distance and direction sign for Taipei. Here, unsophisticated L.A. officials stepped into the great black hole of Taiwan Strait relations.

Originally, the sign read "Taipei, Taiwan." The Taiwanese here were not thrilled with that, preferring "Taipei, Republic of China," which is what they and a handful of other nations — though not the United Nations — call Taiwan. They were realistic enough to accept what they could get, but then unexpectedly came a clandestine makeover crudely designed to ingratiate Los Angeles with the government of mainland China.

On Nov. 14, without notice, the sign was changed to: "Taipei Municipality, Taiwan, China."

That indicates Taipei — diplomatically at least — is just another province of China. That's Beijing's view, to be sure, but not Taipei's. Taipei insists it is the capital of an independent entity; Beijing insists it's an illegal, runaway province.

Upon hearing of the sign change, Taiwan officials, both in Los Angeles and in Taipei, were livid.

Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou fired off a furious fax to the mayor of Los Angeles. "Changing our name is totally unacceptable to us," he complained to James K. Hahn. "We feel it is important to express the strength of feeling in Taipei on this matter, and we will take the necessary steps to maintain respect for Taipei's correct designation."

The next day, Taiwan's top West Coast representative, Jason Yuan, lodged a "solemn protest against (Hahn's) decision in putting our capital city of Taipei under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China." There were rumors of a large protest in front of City Hall by Taiwanese Americans, who in Southern California alone number a quarter of a million, a potent and highly educated political force.

So where was Hahn as the furies were flying? Off on a tour of Asia, most notably China, to drum up Summer Olympics 2008 contracts for city businesses. He was betting that the sign-slap to Taiwan's face would ingratiate him with Beijing and earn him a pair of rare pandas for the L.A. zoo.

But Hahn's ploy proved more local yokel than global noble. At this point in cross-straits diplomacy, Chinese officials — well aware of the pro-China sign change — are less than eager to roil relations with the Taiwanese. Rather, they are enticing Taiwan's businesses to continue massive investment on the mainland.

Hahn's people — not exactly international diplomacy swifties — thought they had the pandas in the bag (or at least in the cage).

However, Chinese officials don't hand out pandas (an endangered species) every time hat-in-hand U.S. politicians (alas, not an endangered species) kowtow in Beijing. Thus, Hahn left China with a fistful of contracts and a nice bear hug from Chinese officials — and nothing more exotic in the zoology department than a promise of some monkeys.

It's even possible that Beijing, not ordinarily sympathetic to Taiwan, felt some distress about the disrespectful way Los Angeles treated the Taiwanese community. Maybe the stupid incident will bring Beijing and Taiwan a little closer, as they conclude that Americans — at least those running Los Angeles — will never really understand their dispute.

And don't blame the Taiwanese in L.A., still fighting the sign change, for finding considerable pleasure in the fact that Beijing made a monkey out of a Los Angeles yokel.

Tom Plate, a columnist with The Honolulu Advertiser and the South China Morning Post, is a professor at UCLA. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu. He also has a spot on the Web.