Gov. Bev Perdue says the time and energy she placed into a trade mission to Asia will be well worth it.

The governor and commerce secretary spent two weeks in Japan and China to drum up new business for the state.

According to the North Carolina Commerce Department, China is the state’s second largest trading partner importing $1.9 billion in North Carolina goods.

Japan is fourth, importing $1.7 billion in products.

But Japan has a far greater imprint in the state with 150 Japanese-owned companies employing 18,000 people as compared with a dozen Chinese companies employing 2,500 North Carolinians.

This trade mission was also about opening the gateway to China to start developing partnerships that may one day create more jobs.

“My goal is for North Carolina to be a global player and this is one of the ways to make it happen,” said Perdue.

First stop: Tokyo to meet with established business partners that former Gov. Jim Hunt developed over the past twenty years.

“It was called aftercare. They liked the fact that a current governor would come and check on them and thank them for their business in North Carolina,” said Perdue.

Next stop: Beijing to forge new ground with a country that has one of the fastest growing economies.

“This is our first dip in the waters. I think its time and energy invested that’s well worth it for people in North Carolina. Jobs here, jobs there,” said Perdue.

But not everyone agreed with the state spending more than $80,000 on a recruitment mission.

Civitas polled 600 likely voters Oct. 20 and 21 and the survey found 71.8 percent disapproved of spending money on the trade mission.

The state did use $90,000 in private funds to supplement the trip.

So we asked Gov. Perdue if the trade mission worth the price.

“It would’ve been ridiculous for us not to do it. The long term relationship with our number 2 trading partner (China) is limitless,” said Perdue.

In Research Triangle Park, The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences supported the trip and ran two biosciences business seminars for the state in Beijing and Shanghai.

“The governor being there was extremely important. It sent a message to Chinese bioscience companies about North Carolina’s commitment. It’s a great opportunity for the state,” said Dr. Bill Greenlee, The Institutes’ Chief Executive Officer.

“We see this as very critical part in the continuum from technology creation to technology commercialization,” Greenlee added.

Although the ultimate payoff may take a decade, the governor hopes for a real deal soon.

“One business I spoke with I think will announce some kind of North Carolina investment sometime mid-year 2010, maybe before that,” said Perdue.

“Success overtime will be in reverse investment. Companies like Lenovo and Honda Jet are two examples from Asia,” said Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dale Carroll. “They’ll continue to grow their presence here and allow us to attract other companies in various sectors of the economy.”

WASHINGTON – The United States is sending its new senior North Korea envoy to Asia early next week to meet with negotiators trying to revive nuclear disarmament talks.

The trip comes as North Korea’s rhetoric grows increasingly hostile. North Korea is threatening to punish anyone trying to disrupt its plan to conduct what the U.S., South Korea and other neighboring countries believe may be a long-range missile test.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Thursday that she is dispatching Stephen Bosworth to the capitals of four countries that have been working with Washington to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program – Russia, Japan, China and South Korea.

Bosworth says it has yet to be decided whether he will meet with North Korean officials.

TOKYO – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used her first overseas trip to declare a new era in relations with Asia, seeking a more global framework of cooperation on common threats like financial instability, nuclear proliferation and climate change.

But the protracted issue of reining in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions cast a long shadow as Clinton opened a weeklong tour of Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China in Tokyo.

“I have come to Asia on my first trip as secretary of state to convey that America’s relationships across the Pacific are indispensable to addressing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st century,” she said.

“We will be looking for ways to collaborate on issues that go beyond just our mutual concerns to really addressing global concerns,” Clinton said at a ceremony to commemorate the arrival of the first secretary of state ever to make Japan their first overseas stop.

Yet Clinton’s message was in danger of being overshadowed by a surge in bellicose rhetoric from North Korea, which just hours before vowed to press ahead with test-firing what wary neighboring governments, particularly Japan and South Korea, believe is a long-range missile. Japan, with an unpopular government and struggling with deep economic woes, is particularly jittery at the moment and Clinton aims to reassure the country of its importance in the international arena.

“The bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan is a cornerstone in our efforts around the world,” she said. On Tuesday, she is expected to announce that she will send a special U.S. envoy to a Japanese-hosted donors conference for Pakistan. In addition to meeting with top government officials and members of the opposition, Clinton will sign an agreement to move about 8,000 of the 50,000 Marines on the island of Okinawa to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

But, North Korea looms large over her visit. She has promised to meet with the families of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. “We do want to press the North Koreans to be more forthcoming with information,” she said en route to Tokyo.

Last week, she had warned North Korea against any “provocative action and unhelpful rhetoric” amid signs the Stalinist nation was preparing to test fire a missile capable of reaching the western United States.

But on Monday, the 67th birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, Pyongyang claimed it has the right to “space development” – a term it has used in the past to disguise a missile test as a satellite launch. When North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite into orbit.

On Sunday, Clinton said told reporters aboard her plane that North Korea needs to live up to commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs, saying Washington is willing to normalize ties with it in return for nuclear disarmament.

“The North Koreans have already agreed to dismantling,” she said. “We expect them to fulfill the obligations that they entered into.”

She also implicitly criticized the Bush administration for abandoning the so-called 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea, reached during President Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House, which called for the North to give up its plutonium-based weapons program.

The framework collapsed when the Bush team accused Pyongyang of maintaining a separate highly enriched uranium program, about which Secretary Clinton said there was still great debate. As a result, she said, the North had restarted and accelerated its plutonium program, allowing it to build a nuclear device that it had detonated in 2006.