Tom Watkins

The big bang was an announcement by American financier Stephen A. Schwarzman’s, founder of private equity firm Blackstone, that he is establishing an international scholarship program in China endowed with $300 million (¥1.8 billion).  The program is the largest-ever internationally funded philanthropic effort in China’s history soon to support 200 scholars a year for study in China.  Forty-five percent of the students will hail from the United States; another 20 percent will come from China with the remaining students representing Europe, South Korea, Japan, and India.

The 21st century Schwartzman Endowment emulates the world famous Rhodes Scholarship program established in 1902.

The New York Times reported “The program’s creation underlines the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders, who have become increasingly anxious as security and economic frictions grow between China and the West … a third of the endowment comes from Mr. Schwarzman’s personal fortune, a third comes from donors and the remaining $100 million is expected to be raised by the end of this year.”  

Clearly the center of the economic and geo-political world is shifting in China’s direction and these scholarships to study in and around China bodes well not only for China but for all humanity. 

In making his announcement, Schwarzman said, “When Cecil J. Rhodes created the Rhodes Scholarship program in 1902 to promote international understanding, Europe was at the center of gravity for the world’s economy, and the United States, the British Empire, and Germany were the world’s most influential global players.  While the 20th century was defined by U.S. ties to Europe, there is no question that the nature of China’s international relationships will play at least as important a role in this century. 

The Schwarzman Scholars Program will be domiciled at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China’s premiere university, and dedicated to academic excellence and integrity, with interaction between Chinese and Western cultures.

Far too many in the West are dangerously ignorant about China’s history, language, government, culture and language. This program jump-starts the process to begin addressing this issue.

Schwarzman reasons, “For the West, this means developing a far richer and more nuanced understanding of China’s social, political and economic context.  A win-win relationship of mutual respect between the West and China is vital, benefiting Asia and the rest of the world, and enhancing economic ties that could lead to a new era of mutual prosperity. Adding, “Leveraging the world-class resources and talented people at Tsinghua University, the program will bring together an exceptional group of students who, we hope, will one day have the power to change the course of history.” 

A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

Bringing some of the worlds best young minds together provides the ingredients for truly changing the world. 

Yet the Schwarzman Scholars Program does not have to wait until the first class commences in 2016 to tap great minds. The Advisory Board assembled for this initiative is world-class and includes: 

* Nicolas Sarkozy, Former President of the French Republic (Honorary);

* Anthony “Tony” Blair, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Honorary);

* Brian Mulroney, Former Prime Minister of Canada (Honorary);

* Kevin Rudd, Former Prime Minister of Australia (Honorary);

* Tung CheeHwa, Vice Chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (Honorary);

* Henry Kissinger, 56th United States Secretary of State (Honorary);

* Colin Powell, 65th United States * Secretary of State (Honorary);

* Condoleezza Rice, 66th United States Secretary of State (Honorary);

* Henry “Hank” Paulson, 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury (Honorary);

* Robert “Bob” Rubin, 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury, Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (Honorary);

* Sir James “Jim” Wolfensohn, 9th President of the World Bank Group (Honorary);

* Richard Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations (Honorary);

* Richard “Rick” Levin, President of Yale University (Honorary);

* Richard Brodhead, President, Duke University (Honorary);

*Chen Ning Yang, Nobel Laureate and Honorary Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Tsinghua University (Honorary);

* John Thornton, Chairman of the Brookings Institution and Professor and Director of Global Leadership at Tsinghua University (Honorary);

* Yo-Yo Ma, the renowned American cellist (Honorary); 

* Iain Conn, Managing Director, BP plc.  

The Schwarzman Scholars plans a choice of four academic disciplines: Public Policy, International Relations, Economics & Business and Engineering.  Additional disciplines will be added in future years.  Schwarzman Scholars will support 200 students annually for a one-year Master’s program at Tsinghua University under the direction of Dean David Daokui Li, a prominent Chinese economist and former member of China’s currency board.  Students will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures by heads of state, traveling throughout the country, and developing a true understanding of China. 

Gary Locke, U.S. Ambassador to China grasped the power of this initiative when he said, “The Schwarzman Scholars program will help the United States and China strengthen ties in all aspects of our bilateral relationship by deepening mutual understanding between both countries, and by creating the interpersonal connections from which a shared vision of future engagement and cooperation can emerge.”

Old “China Hand” Kissinger said, China is “one of the central challenges of our time” and “we need to forge a deeper understanding between the U.S. and China.”

Why does it matter? When Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first premier and described in a book of his name as “The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World”, was asked if Chinese leaders were serious about displacing the U.S. as the number one power in Asia he responded, “Of course.” He continued, “Ours is a culture of 4,000 years with 1.3 billion people, many of great talent – a huge and very talented pool to draw from.  How could they not aspire to be number 1 in Asia, and in time the world?”

Pressing The Idea Into Lower Levels

The world needs to know and understand China.

What is needed now is another philanthropist to step forward and drive this concept down from the prestigious university level to begin laying the foundation for funding global middle and high school students to study in China for extended periods of time. Funding a series of international boarding schools for Chinese and Western students to live, study and learn together would create an educational supply chain of global students and will lay a strong foundation for enhancing the relationship between China and the world.

It is important that we constantly seek ways to build cultural, educational, economic and people-to-people bridges between China and the United States as we hold the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century in our collective hands, impacting our respective citizens and all of humanity. 

Perhaps C H Tung, a member of the Schwarzman Scholars  Program Board of Advisors and Chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation made the point of the value of understanding our respective histories, culture, language and governance structures best when he addressed the West Point Academy on April 12, 2012, “Building strategic mutual trust is about reaching a comprehensive and accurate understanding of each other’s path of development, strategic intention and foreign policy, it is also about each other’s history, culture and values. Developing trust takes understanding, and developing understanding takes an active commitment to listening to and respecting each other’s goals and needs. To achieve this, exchanges and dialogues are very important.”

The Stephen A. Schwarzman’s International Scholarship Program with its $300 million (¥1.8 billion) investment is one fine bridge. But before this bridge is completed, will someone step forward to fund the international middle and high school span?

Tom Watkins serves on the University of Michigan Confucius Institute board of advisors and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation international advisory board.  He is the former Michigan state superintendent of schools, president and CEO of the economic council of Palm Beach County, FL. and is currently a U.S./China business and educational consultant.

With access to new communication technologies, ordinary Chinese people can now easily get information about China’s governments at all levels and know more about countries outside of China, the bigger Forbidden City. In 2012, Internet users in China were able to watch the live debate between President Candidates Obama and Romney, as well as the Taiwan provincial Campaign speech of Mr. Ma Ying-jeou and Ms.Tsai Ing-wen. The consequences of these events are that when First Lady Michelle Obama said, “When people ask me whether being in the White House has changed my husband, I can honestly say that when it comes to his character, and his convictions, and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago”, she not only moved American Voters but also some sensitive Chinese housewives. That is to say, Chinese people are now able to get information on the First Lady and the First Family. This is completely different compared with the situation of 1949 or even 1979. In China’s political discourse, for the first time, the term “First Lady” is no longer a taboo. 

In many of reports on China’s First Lady, quite a few media reports have shifted the focus to Ms. Peng Liyuan’s clothing and accessories. We can’t see any logo on the First Lady’s clothing and accessories, but the headlines many websites and newspapers have pushed the designers and brands to the center stage. A Chinese fashion brand EXCEPTION de MIXMIND and the designer Ma Ke have become famous overnight. That day China’s Shanghai securities composite index reported 2326.71 points, down 0.07%, on the textile and garment board, however it was received at 2231.72 points, up 0.5%. Four high-end custom clothing concept stocks were trading strong. In an increasingly pluralistic society, the resources of the right to speak are no longer exclusively controlled by the government, and CCTV is just an ordinary TV channel. Business groups have the ability to direct an audiences’ attention and to represent their brands. In the news feast of the First Lady, the government and business groups respectively get what they want. 

The First Lady: a famous singer, a beautiful woman in the military, the AIDS prevention ambassador. There have been many labels given to Ms. Peng Liyuan and combined into entertaining headlines. The images of Russian President Vladimir Putin welcoming Ms Peng Liyuan and her husband with flowers enticed the Chinese people. In this vast country, there are millions of ordinary people who have no interest in international politics, but they still love the First Lady Laura Bush, who helped turned a prodigal cowboy into a President; they still discuss why Carla Bruni, the graceful supermodel, does not wear heels next to French President; and they do envy Great Britain for using Princess Kate as an excuse to have a national carnival for the wedding of Prince William. They have a simple desire that a great state with 1.37 billion people should also have a beautiful woman as a cover for Vanity Fair. Liyuan, with her simple civilian background, low-key personality, clean resume and dignified appearance has filled the vacuum and swept the Chinese people’s historical sense of hunger. 

In China’s traditional culture, women should not appear in political occasions, and should always stand in the shadow of the leaders. Their greatest virtue remains unknown to the public. So, in China, the term “First Lady” is seen as an imported foreign good. Today, China is gradually moving from a revolutionary society towards a normal and peaceful one. The high-profile debut of a “First Lady” can be seen as respect for the rules in international relations, as well as some state building in domestic politics. Liyuan, with her grace and beauty, guides the people to trust the central government and to love their diverse country. The enthusiasm for the First Lady is not so much praise for her personality, as an expectation for a new generation of central government. 

In 1984, for the first time the Chinese people used “Hello Xiaoping” to express their equal love to then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. 29 years later,, for the first time, the Chinese people equally express their heartfelt love to the new First Lady even though they know that she is not the first wife of the President. Both of these things will be written into the long history of China. 

Zhou Yijun is a Research Fellow at Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

With over 120,000 Chinese college students in the United Stated this past year it is now well documented that as a country China has the single largest number of international college students attending US colleges and universities. These students are contributing over $4 billion to the US economy, adding diversity and revenue to an increasing number of American colleges. While most Chinese students traditionally came to the US for graduate degrees in the STEM disciplines (Science Technology, Education and Math), over recent years we have seen a dramatic growth in Chinese undergraduate students. For example between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 undergraduate enrollments increased 45% compared to only a 15.6% increase for graduate student enrollments. 

James P. Cross

James P. Cross

This growth in undergraduate enrollments however, is creating challenges for both students and the hosting colleges as students try to adapt to the US method of inquiry based, interactive learning with a heavy emphasis on communication and problem solving. Both Chinese parents and US colleges are responding in a number of ways to better prepare aspiring undergraduates to be successful in a US college environment. These include expanded English language training and support both in China and the US, bridge programs that introduce Chinese students to American education and culture, summer camps and increasingly a demand on the Chinese side for a US high school education for their child. 

The move to push a US style education into the more formative years of a Chinese student’s education seems to be gaining momentum.  There is growing recognition among Chinese parents and students that scoring well on standardized tests such as the TOEFL, SAT and ACT does not guarantee success in a US college classroom and that Chinese students need to start earlier in their academic preparation for a US college. 

Chinese and United States government data shows that numbers are indeed on the rise. For example, the US Department of Homeland Security reports that 6,725 Chinese students went to study in secondary schools in the US in 2011 compared to only 65 in 2006. The Chinese Association for International Understanding states that Chinese high school students studying abroad now represent 22.6% of the total number of all Chinese students studying abroad. At the China International Education Exhibition Tour in Beijing in early March 15% of the nearly 400 exhibitors present represented high schools, according to China Daily. While Australia, Canada and Britain are popular destinations the US market share seems to be trending upwards. One US high school is taking the best of a US high school preparation to China opening opportunities for even more Chinese students to get an early start on their path to a US college without having to leave the country and their families at such a young age. 

Vermont International Academy (VIA), a Vermont approved independent school, recently opened a campus in Shanghai in partnership with Datong High School. Two more are slated to open in Shanghai and Tianjin in fall 2013. The concept is unique, but simple: provide the best of both a US and Chinese education to high school students. VIA combines a full US high school set of courses and requirements taught by US licensed teachers, plus a number of Chinese courses taught by Datong High School teachers. In this way, the Chinese students improve their English language skills and learn to be successful in a US classroom without losing touch with their Chinese language and cultural roots. In addition, the program offers opportunities for US high school students to spend a month, semester or year at VIA taking regular American high school courses in English and to study Chinese language and culture including tai chi and calligraphy. Having American students in the classroom also helps the Chinese students. Because of this focus on cultural exchange for US students, the US department of State recognized VIA – Datong as a supporting school of the 100,000 Strong Initiative to promote opportunities for more US students to study in China.  

So how is it working? During interviews with VIA students this past month one response was unanimous:  students believed the US college system was the best in the world and they wanted to study there. They cited that the strengths of VIA included academic freedom, the curriculum, personal attention from the teachers and access to teachers, English language training and a pathway to a US college education. One student specifically noted that he really liked the fact that he could study both an American curriculum and still take Chinese language and culture courses. The students also noted challenges with the program that included the stricter rules and policies connected with being an American high school within a Chinese high school. For example, the students need to follow the host Chinese high school policies in the same way as the other Chinese students including wearing uniforms, respecting curfews, restricted phone and internet access, etc. 

From an American student perspective, the program should help the Chinese students to be better prepared. Michael Zhang, a junior at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts, worked as an intern this past summer with VIA to develop a model United Nations simulation program for the first batch of VIA Chinese students in Shanghai. Michael noted that when working with Chinese students he immediately noticed differences between their classroom attitudes and behaviors and those of American students. “Despite their intellectual capabilities, the rigid and structured education that they were earlier receiving caused them to be extremely cautious, shy, and almost afraid to participate in class” he said, adding “It was challenging to encourage them to take academic risks and deviate from commonly held or course-guided opinions.” By the end of the program, however, he noticed significant progress noting that the VIA program “provided an encouraging environment and trained students to participate and involve themselves more in class, allowing them to build confidence and self-assurance that is crucial to succeeding in the US educational system.”

Overall, the increase in the numbers of Chinese students studying in US high school programs in both the US and China should bode well, both for the students wanting to be successful in a US college environment and for the US colleges interested in attracting Chinese students who are prepared for their classrooms.

Dr. James P. Cross is Associate Provost and Senior International Officer at Champlain College.

“After the Cultural Revolution, a lot of people felt the need to make up for lost time, so we worked extremely hard,” said Mr. Wang, 56, who studies at the China Europe International Business School, or Ceibs.

Mr. Wang was sent to a poor mountainous region during the Cultural Revolution, at a time when higher education was viewed with suspicion and those who were considered privileged were “sent down” to work with peasants. He ended up as the general manager of a chemical company, before making his fortune in a series of other ventures.

“I’ve been very successful,” he said. “However, I used to believe that because I was successful I must be right, but I’ve learned that what is successful in the past might be a burden for me in the future.”

Chinese executives are going back to school partly because, unlike their Western counterparts, many did not have the chance to study properly earlier in life.

“The average age of our executive M.B.A. student is 41 or 42, with almost 20 years of work experience — they are much older than their counterparts in Europe or the U.S.,” said Qian Yingyi, the dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing. They “simply didn’t have a chance to study business in their 20s.”

Some never finished high school. They grew up during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and then built their careers through the state-owned enterprise system in the 1980s and ’90s.

Deans of business schools say that Chinese executives are often looking for more than just another qualification or practical managerial advice.

“China’s economy has really been booming in the last 20 years,” said Charles Chen, the associate dean at Ceibs. “There is now a tremendous need to summarize past experiences in order to move forward. To understand how, as well as why.”

“Chinese executives are great with intuition and experience, but what is missing is broader perspectives,” said Mr. Qian of Tsinghua University.

Long told that “to get rich is glorious” — a quote often attributed to the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping — some entrepreneurs are questioning the greater meaning of their success.

“Business schools in China are having some responsibility toward solving social problems in country,” said Xiang Bing, the founding dean at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, which the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing established in Beijing in 2002 as the first private business school in mainland China.

“We have to look at the whole equation of wealth — why you do business, how you do business, and what to do with the money you have,” Mr. Xiang said.

The executive M.B.A. curriculum at Cheung Kong includes classes on philosophy, Eastern and Western religion, global history and literature.

“We hope our executive students can strive for enlightened lives — it may not be attainable, but it should be strived for,” Mr. Xiang said.

Leading Chinese executives or their companies pay upwards of 600,000 renminbi, or about $96,000, for a part-time, two- to three-year course. Many fly across the country to attend four-day blocks of classes once a month.

In a light, spacious lounge at the Ceibs campus in Beijing, Wei Qiuli, a senior vice president at Gome Electrical Appliances, explained why so many Chinese entrepreneurs like her were enrolling in these programs.

“The environment here instills a sense of calm so we can systematically think about what we’ve been going through in our jobs,” Ms. Wei, 46, said.

Nearby, dozens of high-level Chinese business leaders — her fellow students — were tapping out messages on their iPhones and preparing for their class on Disruptive Marketing.

Ceibs, which has campuses in Beijing and Shanghai, plus a smaller presence in Shenzhen, has about 770 executive M.B.A. students.

After three decades of the kind of rapid economic growth that does not allow much time for contemplation, business leaders in China are turning to executive M.B.A.’s for a greater understanding of the global business world, how to be better corporate leaders and, increasingly, what to do after they have succeeded.

Twenty years ago, management education in China barely existed. While the first M.B.A. in the world was offered by Harvard University in 1908, it was not until 1991 that China introduced its own M.B.A. programs at a handful of schools. It took several more years for the first executive M.B.A. programs to open.

Today, China has 62 business schools offering executive M.B.A.’s to more than 8,000 students a year.

“At present, China’s executive M.B.A. education can hardly meet the huge demands of senior management talents due to China’s fast economic growth,” said Lu Xiongwen, the dean of the School of Management at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Four of the top 10 executive M.B.A. programs listed in the 2012 Financial Times ranking are taught in greater China, though most of them are partnerships with Western institutions. In first place is a collaboration between the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Ceibs, established under an agreement with the European Commission, is in the top 10. There is also a linkup between Insead in France and Tsinghua, and another between the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Fudan.

“Last year, 68 percent of our executive M.B.A. students were from the top levels of corporations — president, general managers, chairman of the boards,” said Mr. Chen of Ceibs, adding that almost half came from private Chinese companies, with the rest divided between state-owned enterprises and joint ventures.

Schools are not predicting a slowdown in the growth of M.B.A. programs in the near future. “The economy of mainland China is very likely to catch up with that of the U.S. in 10 years,” Mr. Lu of Fudan University said. “China has 50,000 M.B.A. and executive M.B.A. graduates each year, which is far from enough to support China’s economic growth and companies’ demands in order to survive against global competition.”

“The demand for business education is so huge in China right now,” said Mr. Xiang of Cheung Kong. “And if we need, we can eventually just start opening up our executive programs to more vice presidents, division heads and less senior management.”

Kit Gillet is a freelance journalist currently based in Beijing. His work appears regularly in the international press, for publications including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and CNN.

© 2013 The International Herald Tribune

Wu Sike

On New Year’s Eve, the whole family, including the elder and younger generations, sits around a table of steaming dishes to share in the year-end feast and wish each other good luck in the coming year. This is the happiest moment of the family; it is also the most precious memory for those family members who pursue livelihood or studies thousands of miles away from home to find their spiritual sustenance. Every year, hundreds of millions of Chinese people brave freezing conditions and strenuous journeys to travel home in what is dubbed the “largest human migration on the earth.”

Overseas, more and more local people in different countries are attracted to Chinese communities to watch lion dances and eat jiaozi (dumpling) at Chinese restaurants during the lunar New Year holiday. In the past Spring Festival, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US President Barack Obama and many other world leaders delivered messages of good will to Chinese throughout the world. Some of them even pronounced a few Chinese words in the speech, bringing a sense of affinity.

This is a reminder of “smart power”, a concept frequently referred to during the tenure of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Essentially, smart power consists of both hard power and soft power; a nation’s soft power grows from three resources. First, is a nation’s culture that appears attractive to other nations and people. Second, is a nation’s political values, which it practices both at home and in foreign relations. Third, is a nation’s foreign policy. While a nation’s foreign policy aims to protect its legal interests, it should also respect other nations’ interests and accord reverence to their space of existence – Live and let live. Only by doing so, can one make friends. Nowadays, culture has become a major source of cohesion and creativity for a nation. It is also a vital part of a nation’s competitive power.

Both America and China boast splendid cultural heritages. The Chinese culture has been eclectic and inclusive in its development over 5,000 years. It values harmony and emphasizes the sharing of joy. As I understand it, American values endorse change, innovation, free competition and public statement of individuality, emphasizing that men are created equal and human effort is capable of anything. These values empower men to make progress. These beliefs appear in contrast to such traditional Chinese concepts as harmony, benevolence and “do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” However, they are complementary to each other.

Today, “universal values” are a common concept. Both the idea of encouraging human subjective initiative and that of advocating harmony between man and man and between man and nature are universal values, which need to be studied thoroughly. This is also an important part of cultural exchanges between China and the United States. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “Contacts between different civilizations have often in the past proved to be landmark in human progress”. Both official contacts and non-governmental exchanges are needed in the dialogue between Chinese and American civilizations. NGOs and media should also commit themselves to mutual understanding and co-operation between the two nations.

Chinese poet Du Fu (712-770) wrote: “At night drizzle sneaks in with wind; Silently it moistens everything.” The poem is often quoted as a metaphor of unnoticeable influence. The exchange between Chinese and American cultures should also be a course of evolution. No human civilization could exist without its tangible heritage, or its “body”; nor could it be passed on without its intangible heritage, or its “soul”. It was just because of this soul that the Chinese culture has been passed down from generation to generation. A nation fosters its core values during its development by combining heritages and innovation. Developing a cultural model that accords with a nation’s social development and spreads its cultural characteristics is vital for successful cultural exchange with other civilizations.

As the tides of economic integration sweep across the globe, it has become imperative for China to make its culture and core values known to the rest of the world. China respects cultural diversity and holds that only by co-existing in harmony can all creatures grow and develop. The harmony is like a chord; a single note will not make music. It is also like the budding vegetation in spring. The green comes in different tints to make a vibrant spring of lives. Like biodiversity, cultural diversity is an essential characteristic of our beautiful world. It is also a major force propelling human progress. Deepening the cultural dialogue between the two great peoples of China and the United States should become the main content of cultural exchange and deserves attention and practicing by insightful leaders from both sides.

Wu Sike is a member on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and member on the Foreign Policy Consulting Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affair.

Why indeed? Over the past two decades, Hollywood’s perception of China has evolved, from a totalitarian state to a major growth opportunity. And as the American movie industry increasingly needs China, its films have begun to alter content accordingly. Life of Pi, which has no connection to China besides the Taiwanese ethnicity of its director Ang Lee, has received 11 nominations for Sunday’s Oscars, and box-office receipts of more than $90 million on the mainland. The uncontroversial film is the only one of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture to have been shown in movie theaters in China. In all likelihood, that’s for good reason: In the American version, a character declares that “religion is darkness”; in the Chinese it was changed.

An offspring of a co-production with China Film Group, the largest state film conglomerate, Shanghai Calling underscores Hollywood’s shifting strategy toward China and the overt or self-censorship it brings. A decade after China entered the World Trade Organization, Hollywood is only allowed to export about 20 films a year to the China market, where box office sales climbed to more than $2 billion in 2012.

One way around the quota restriction, explains Hsia, is to get approval for co-productions. Under this arrangement, a Hollywood studio partners with a Chinese entity in order to have the final product considered a domestic film, exempting it from the import quota. It also allows for risk-sharing, because the Chinese partner puts up part of the money. The potential for Chinese money and market access is highly attractive to a Hollywood that faces dwindling domestic ticket sales and saw declining profits in five out of six of its major studios in 2012.

Although China has made it much easier for Americans to invest, getting a co-production approved is still a difficult process. Ideologues in the Communist Party have long considered Western culture “spiritual pollution” and viewed Hollywood suspiciously as an instrument of American statecraft packaged into nebulous “soft power.” Scripts for co-productions are submitted for approval to the State Administration for Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT), which oversees the film and entertainment industry. “Like in any business negotiation, the person who has the power to say no has the leverage,” says Hsia.

Here’s where censorship comes in: SARFT even meddled with the making of a rather innocuous and apolitical comedy like Shanghai Calling. But beyond what foreign filmmakers must do to get a co-production approved, the effort to avoid offending the Chinese has had an impact on film content in the U.S. market. Subtle but noticeable changes have also seeped into on-screen portrayals of China.

In Hollywood in the 1990s, China was an oppressive place. Red Corner opens with Gere gazing up at security cameras in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, ground zero of the infamous bloodshed of early June, 1989, seared into many Americans’ memories. Brad Pitt, too, had been blacklisted from China, ostensibly for starring in the 1997 feature Seven Years in Tibet, in which his character becomes friends with the young Dalai Lama.

Hollywood has also tended to churn out political activist A-listers, some of whom have had uneasy relationships with the Chinese government. Actress Mia Farrow contributed to director Steven Spielberg’s defection in early 2008 from the Beijing Olympics advisory committee over China’s involvement in Sudan; Christian Bale, while filming in China in 2011, tried to visit then imprisoned Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. As an industry whose craft is telling stories, however woeful and inadequate at times, Hollywood stands squarely within the proud tradition of American idealism that revolts against oppression and celebrates individual freedoms.

But things are changing. The apocalyptic 2012, released at the height of the financial crisis in 2009, depicts the Chinese as ingenious saviors who assembled massive arks to house the few humans selected to carry on the human race. Oliver Platt, playing a White House staffer, even slips in the line “Leave it to the Chinese. I didn’t think it was possible. Not in the time we had.” Men in Black 3digitally cropped scenes of New York’s Chinatown that were considered unflattering, and the highly anticipated Iron Man 3 is also expected to include positive references to China.

The kowtowing occasionally descends into farce, as with the November 2012 release of the remake of Red Dawn, a Cold War-era cult classic, in which a band of American teens defeats an invading army of North Koreans. Except the enemies weren’t supposed to be North Koreans, but rather Chinese; the producers changed the nationality of the invaders mid-filming, and digitally erased Chinese flags. As implausible as a Chinese invasion of the American Midwest sounds, it is far more realistic than one from North Koreans.

Beyond content adjustments, casting choices and shooting locations are being sinified. The Expendables sequel traded Jet Li for a Chinese vixen, Nan Yu, who is not Lucy Liu; Taiwanese pop sensation Jay Chou (who is not Jackie Chan) played alongside Seth Rogen in the reincarnation of Green Hornet, and Chinese starlet Zhou Xun has popped up in Cloud Atlas.

 What was once Hong Kong’s quintessential role as the establishing shot — alerting theater audiences that they’re now in China — has now been overtaken by glitzy mainland metropolises. Tom Cruise’s 2006 Mission Impossible 3 was perhaps the first major blockbuster to set a lengthy scene in contemporary Shanghai, portrayed as developed and futuristic. Since then, Will Smith has taken the Karate Kid 2 to Beijing, Transformers had sets designed to evoke Shanghai, and the newest James Bond and the dystopian future adventure flick Looper also threw down in Shanghai. 

The era in which China could still be a menacing villain and stir political passions from the Spielbergs and the Geres appears to be ending. Even Brangelina are reportedly studying Mandarin. And the political drama surrounding disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, ripe for Hollywoodification, will never see the light of day. Too bad, because the Bo Ultimatum is the Chinese Godfather waiting to be made. As Hollywood gathers for its biggest awards night Sunday, the industry seems to be biting its tongue. After all, the future, as Jeff Daniels quips in Looper, is in China.

Damien Ma is a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly online and is currently working on a book about China.

© 2013. Foreign Policy.

The question is often laughed off, at first. Many students dismiss the challenge of defining China, confident in the knowledge that, like Justice Stewart on another topic, they know it when they see it.

The question is not simply “academic”: today’s headlines about the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands ask it implicitly. Are the islands part of China? What is China?

In the hands or throats of Chinese nationalists, the answers to the question tend to be adjectives, and they often focus on the past: China has been humiliated! Is one of the most common clichés. As an antidote to that humiliation, China must be strong! When responding to international criticism—whether about the islands dispute, human rights, environmental degradation, intellectual property concerns, or anything else—the Opium Wars and 100 years of humiliation is rarely far from the surface. Xi Jinping’s first speech as CCP Secretary promised the “renewal of the Chinese nation,” and invoked the Opium War.

But what is the Chinese nation Xi aspires to renew?

When modern China’s great national hero, Sun Yat-sen, proclaimed the Republic of China on January 1, 1912, its boundaries, essentially, matched today’s PRC. After 101 years, those borders remain, more or less, unchanged.

This consistency implies that China’s external boundaries and internal unity are self-evident. All nationalists—Chinese and otherwise—promote the view that the nation-state, in its current form, has deep, even eternal, roots. In the Chinese case, nationalist ambition glosses over two fundamental contradictions, surrounding both the internal unity and the external boundaries, that have deep roots, but take particular hold in the decades leading to the 1911 revolution and the Republic that ensued.

To address this, let’s observe that Sun Yat-sen based the Republic’s boundaries on the Qing dynasty that he sought to overthrow. The rub here is that the Qing dynasty was not Chinese. Its Manchu founders conquered China in a long, bloody war 17^th-century^-war. More to the point, 19^th and 20^th century nationalists like Sun Yat-sen built their vision of China on anti-Manchu sentiment. Sun described the 1911 revolution as “throwing off the Manchu yoke.” Zou Rong, another revolutionary who was executed for sedition in 1905, described the Manchus as “furry and horned” devils who had inflicted “260 years of harsh and unrelenting pain” on China and its people.

So it’s unlikely that Sun would have chosen his borders because they were Manchu constructions, but that’s just what he did.  China’s long parade of dynasties, going back at least to the Qin “unification” in 221 bce, varied widely in their geographic extent (setting aside other questions about their nature). Today’s border regions, including the Northeast/Manchuria, Xinjiang in the Northwest, Tibet, and the Southwestern provinces were rarely part of the same state as the Chinese “heartland” like the Yangzi Delta, Shandong, or other areas. These border areas are not, by most cultural, linguistic, and social definitions, Chinese. These were included in the Republic (and thus the PRC) because they had been conquered by the Qing: the Manchu devils from whom Sun sought to liberate China.

The PRC’s external boundaries are legacies of the Manchus, but internally the Chinese nation Xi Jinping will soon govern is characterized by division as much as cohesion. Take five of the important population and cultural centers of today’s PRC: Xi’an and the Yellow River valley; Beijing/Tianjin; the Yangzi delta; Chongqing and Sichuan; and Guangdong. In the distant past, these five quintessentially “Chinese” regions were often parts of different states—many of which weren’t Chinese at all. In the 19^th century, regional divisions facilitated China’s defeats in both Opium Wars, the 1888 Sino-French War, the 1894-5 Sino-Japanese War, and others. As China modernized—more effectively than many realize—in response to internal and external pressures, these efforts were often regional in nature. Armories, shipyards and other initiatives were led and managed by regional rather than central forces; even reforms to the Chinese military were based on regional divisions, fueling fragmentation. Partly in response to these crises, the idea of a single, unified Chinese state was a dream of nationalists.

But the contradiction goes deeper than that. The original Republican flag, later replaced by the Nationalist Party’s white-sun logo, featured five horizontal stripes, each one representing a different “race” that comprised the Chinese republic: Han, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, and Muslims. The melting-pot ideal represented by the flag is at odds with the often-virulent racial nationalism Sun and other espoused. Yet they went together in the founding of the Republic.

And they persist.

Chinese nationalists embrace an eternal Chinese state. Yet, today’s People’s Republic is built on the dreams of 20^th-century nationalists, whose state was the product of 18^th century Manchu imperialism. The five stripes on the Republican flag are forgotten, but the huge swathes of territory they represented—Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Manchuria—are considered inviolable parts of the Chinese nation. Something they never were in the past.

Patriotism has been called the last refuge of scoundrels. In this case, it is a dangerous refuge. Diplomacy is undervalued in today’s world, and it calls for careful compromise and subtle understanding. Both compromise and understanding are difficult when one’s starting position is viewed as eternal and self-evident. For nationalists in China, awareness of their state’s imperial and multi-national roots would be a useful step away from ultimatums and toward the compromise needed for the peaceful coexistence its leaders claim to seek.

Dr. James Carter is a Professor of History and the Director of International Relations at Saint Joseph’s University; he serves as Chief Editor of “Twentieth-Century China” (http://www.maney.co.uk/index.php/journals/tcc/).

So why the sudden increase? In a culture that views education as a critical factor for advancement; economic growth combined with high personal savings rates and a one child policy, has put a college education within the reach of more people. The problem is that unless these students get into the top tier universities in China they will not get the higher paying jobs or any job at all for some, upon graduation. Youth unemployment is becoming a concern for the government, recent graduates and their families placing even more stress on the students to get into a top tier school.

For university entrance, Chinese students have to take the grueling nine-hour gaokao entrance exam that is offered only once a year. This is the sole determinant for admission selection for most students. Faced with the prospect of a second tier university in China, families who can afford it are choosing to send their child abroad to study. The United States has become the first choice.

Traditionally, the vast majority of Chinese students coming to the United States have been graduate students studying science, technology, engineering or math – the so called STEM disciplines. Most of these students studied at large public or private research universities. While graduate students still make up the majority of students coming to the US representing 49% of the total, undergraduate enrollments are catching up fast. According to the latest numbers released by the Institute for International Education (IIE) in their publication Open Doors, there was a 43% increase in Chinese undergraduates coming to the US compared to a 15.6% increase in graduate students over the previous year. In numbers this means that in 2009/10 there were approximately 40,000 Chinese undergraduate students compared to 57,000 Chinese undergraduates in 2010/2011. The graduate student numbers were 66,453 to 76,830 respectively for the same years.

While the continued increase in international students led by China has a positive economic impact on US schools and communities; helps diversify US classrooms introducing our domestic students to different ways of thinking and viewing the world, it also creates challenges. This is becoming ever more apparent at the undergraduate levels.

Chinese and other international graduate students in the STEM disciplines often work as research or teaching assistants in their specific disciplines. While there may be communication challenges and schools may need to provide language and other support for some of these older students they generally adapt, contribute to research and are great additions to US universities.

The younger international undergraduate students however, are often finding themselves in a very different environment. For Chinese students who have gone through the traditional Chinese education system this is especially true. Most of the Chinese students are applying to top tier national liberal arts colleges and baccalaureate schools in the US. Accreditation standards for theses schools require students to take a mix of general education and discipline specific or “major” courses. More often than not the classroom experience involves interactive learning including group work and team projects, oral presentations, hands on problem solving, and a strong emphasis on communication and the development of critical thinking skills. It may be content rich but there is an emphasis on using that content in different, more interactive ways.

This is a far cry from the traditional Chinese classroom experience, which often puts the teacher on the stage (or small platform) in the front of the room. The teacher lectures to the students sitting in chairs that are lined up in rows. This method of teaching with a heavy emphasis on memorization seems to help Chinese students perform well on standardized testing including the SAT, ACT and written English language tests like the TOEFL exam. The end result is that a greater number of US liberal arts and other schools have been admitting students with great test scores but poor interactive learning skills. This, combined with challenges of language and culture shock, can cause Chinese and other international undergraduates to struggle both in and out of the classroom.

College administrations, especially those with little experience with hosting international students, are recognizing the need to provide the necessary resources including help for faculty, staff and domestic students to welcome this increased number of international students. For example there may be a need to expand international student support services such as staffing for immigration issues, English language support, advising and counseling. There may be dietary considerations, lodging and other student life issues. In short, the benefits of additional revenue and increased campus internationalization have their costs.

US colleges are adapting quickly to these challenges in a number of ways, both at the front end of the admissions process in China and on campus once they arrive. Many schools are now going to China to interview student applicants prior to acceptance. Others have started bridge programs to provide training for Chinese students in English language, American culture and American style education on-site in China or on their campuses prior to classes beginning. On campus, services are being expanded to ensure that the Chinese and other students can be successful both inside and outside of the classroom contributing to a richer more global campus experience for the whole community.  

More students are on the way, the best colleges are adapting quickly. Provided the challenges are met in a timely manner the US-Chinese education connection should bring dividends to both sides for years to come.

Dr. James P. Cross is Associate Provost and Senior International Officer at Champlain College.

China is exporting more than cheap “stuff” to America. Increasingly, the Chinese are sending us their most prized possession: their children. 

Tom Watkins

According to a study by the Institute for International Education, China has become the largest source of foreign students in U.S. universities.

This is the fourth wave of Chinese immigration, which began in the 19th century with Chinese laborers in search of the “Golden Mountain” during the California gold rush.

Through the years Chinese labor and intellect have helped build the West and continues to do so to this day. 

In the words of Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader following Mao, China was to “bide its time and hide its capabilities.” Clearly, the Chinese are no longer hiding their capabilities by sending some of their best and brightest to the West to be educated.

It is reported that a record high 765,000 international students came to the United States last year. More than 158,000 are from China.  This is a 23 percent increase from the year before. 

The rising economic prosperity in China has provided the means for more Chinese families to afford a Western education, said RAND Corporation economist Jim Hosek.

”There are a lot of Chinese entrepreneurs, businessmen of all sorts business leaders, who are simply wealthier today, and they can afford to send their sons and daughters abroad,” said Hosek.

The negative, anti-China rhetoric practiced by many politicians during the political  the elections cycle digging for votes is not worthy of a great nation. In this past year’s U.S. presidential election, China once again became a vote-seeking magnet and boogieman. American Presidential candidates have often used China as a battering ram during the election only to moderate their position once in office and confronted with the reality of a strong Chinese economy, rising military power, and an internationally engaged partner/competitor. With thoughtful leadership– China’s rise need not come at our demise. 

Learning From Past Mistakes

The Asia Society (www.asiasociety.org) has reported that the Chinese will invest over a trillion US dollars around the globe over the next decade and America is anxious to be a magnet to attract that investment. 

Chinese students coming to America are, to a great extent, from a pampered class of “little princes and princesses,” products of the “one child” policy and raised to excel by the 1-2-4 formula: one child, two parents and four doting grandparents.

The Chinese view a quality Western education as the passage to economic security, English-speaking skills, and a good life.

Confucian Tradition Of Valuing Learning

An entire family’s energies and resources are usually dedicated to the single cause of obtaining a quality education for their Chinese offspring. These students, in turn, channel all their energies to being successful academically.

These students are not only bright, ambitious, and driven, they typically come from the connected — including politically connected — and wealthy families of China.

The Chinese economy has been on steroids, growing at an annual rate of 10 percent the previous three decades. With its 267 million children under the age of 14 (approaching the size of America’s entire population), China has a near-endless supply of students to educate, as well as limited educational slots at home to accommodate them.

Thoughtful policymakers are attempting to ride the China wave by marketing our state as the “brain bank” of the world, aggressively recruiting the best students to our state and helping them stay to build a new life and new opportunities.

Chinese high school seniors spend two grueling days taking the Chinese university entrance exam or the dreaded, the gaokao—the college entrance examination. This exam is the ultimate sorter, rather like a national game of musical chairs. There are more students seeking that ticket to success — a coveted seat at a prestigious university — than there are seats available. The top test-takers go to the top universities until seats are filled, and then students tumble down to the lesser institutions until all the slots are filled. This process leaves many qualified students without a seat.

Historically, immigrants and students put down roots where they first land. US States like Michigan are developing thoughtful, deliberate strategic plans that nurture and encourages Chinese students (and all international students), along with their families, to establish roots in the state.

Exporting Abroad– Improving At Home

China is not only exporting its children to be educated in the West, they are also investing heavily to create and enhance higher education domestically. The New York Times recently reported, “China is making a $250 billion-a-year investment in what economists call human capital. Just as the United States helped build a white-collar middle class in the late 1940s and early 1950s by using the G.I. Bill to help educate millions of World War II veterans, the Chinese government is using large subsidies to educate tens of millions of young people as they move from farms to cities. China wants to move up the development curve by fostering a much more broadly educated public, one that more closely resembles the multifaceted labor forces of the United States and Europe.”

Zhang Weiwei, in his book, The China Wave – Rise of a Civilization State sums it up this way: “China’s capacity for learning, adaption and innovation, together with an unmatched scale effects thanks to size of the population, has produced immense internal and external impacts.”

Clearly the Chinese are not content to be the factory for the world-they are striving and succeeding to be an educated innovation nation. 

The viability of a society, the strength of their economy, the quality of their lives and their place in the world are inextricably linked to the quality of education provided to their people.

Haoxuebujuan—to be never tired of learning.

Knowledge is power on a global scale.

To learn more about Michigan in Chinese or English see: i.youku.com/puremichigan. Or www.michiganadvantage.org

Tom Watkins serves on the University of Michigan Confucius Institute board of advisors and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation international advisory board.  He is the former Michigan state superintendent of schools, president and ceo of the economic council of Palm Beach County, FL. and is currently a U.S./China business and educational consultant.

There once was a time when what happened in China had minimal impact on our lives in America. Those days are gone. Now what happens in China no longer just stays in China. We will continue to feel the ripple effects of the China tsunami wave of change that will continue to wash upon our shores as the 21st century unfolds. How we adapt to and lead these changes will help define our destiny.

As large and powerful as China is, few in America know much about the country — its history, customs, geography, language, politics or people. This needs to change.

China punctured America’s consciousness in many ways the past few years begin with the spellbinding Olympics in 2008 and surpassing German and Japan to become the second largest world economy with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently projecting that it will be the largest economy in the world in five years’ time, surpassing the US.

I am far from a China expert, or “Old China Hand.” However, I love the Chinese culture and people and have read and traveled in China enough to know more than the average Westerner. My hope is we can build on what China’s President Hu Jintao calls a “harmonious” relationship with China while staying true to our ideals as a nation. This will become increasing more difficult, as China flexes its  new found military and economic might.  

With a 5,000-year history, China is a kaleidoscope of complexity and change. Many older Americans remember learning about China as a backward, communist county, with our parents imploring us to “eat your peas — kids are starving in China.” That was before China simultaneously modernized and opened to the world. Today, some would argue China is eating our lunch.

We are living through disruptive, transformational, unpredictable, technologically-driven global change. A time when ideas and jobs, can and do move around the globe effortlessly. China and the United States are the major players. Some argue the 20th century belonged to America and the 21st century will ultimately be led by China. I do not know if their arguments will withstand the test of time. However, I do know that our destinies are linked and we must find ways to live, work and solve problems together or we will surely fall together.

I have traveled throughout China numerous times since 1989, to cities many have heard of such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Lasha, Tibet, and others less familiar such as Beichuan, Bengbu, Changchun, Mianyang, Turpan, Urumqi, and Wuhan. During my travels I have seen the ultramodern as well as scenes that would take you back centuries.

It is reported that China has boosted between 300-500 million people out of abject poverty following the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Despite all the progress, China’s per capita income remains well below the world average and far behind the income levels of many developed countries.

Despite the economic success story that is unparalleled in world history, China remains a developing nation. It has rampant air and water pollution, corruption, income inequity, a rapidly aging population and religious and minority repression (especially the Falun Gong and the Tibetan and Uyghur people). These issues pose major environmental and social challenges to its continued long-term harmonious development.

I do not raise these issues to cast aspersions on China, nor to interfere with their internal affairs or to denigrate the remarkable progress it has made throughout history. I raise these issues not because I want China to fail – on the contrary, the world needs China to succeed. 

My lifetime interest in China, its people, history and culture and writing hundreds of articles about building cultural, educational and economic bridges with a Communist County, home to one-fifth of the world’s humanity has resulted in push back from of my fellow countrymen. Certainly nothing like the Red scare with the McCarthy era (During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies) witch hunt but being called a “Commie,” “ Red lover”, “Mao’s stooge,” “communist sympathizer” and others not fit to print.

Writing about China typically generates a visceral response from readers on both sides of the world. Some of my Chinese colleagues with a building sense of nationalism feel I should not point out the blemishes in China and are quick to highlight U.S. flaws in defense of their country.   Many Americans, on the other hand, have been conditioned to believe China is the root of all evil and a significant factor in what ails our country and believe we should put trade shield around the U.S. to keep out the Chinese.

Given the economic anxiety gripping America, there is a growing trend to become more isolationist, xenophobic, and protectionist. While good for political pandering, history has demonstrated these moves hurt the American consumer and will prolong and worsen the global economic recovery. 

Our national leaders should pursue not only free trade, but also fair trade. It is unfortunate when large-scale economic change gets dragged into political gamesmanship to garner votes at the expense of real solutions as we witnessed in the last presidential election. The tendency to spend time casting blame, seeking a scapegoat or bogeyman would be better spent searching for solutions that benefit American families, communities and creating jobs here at home. 

Crossing the river by feeling for stones

Since China, under Deng Xiaoping opened to the world the changes have been  like a roller-coaster on steroids. I suspect the next 30 will be like a bumper car ride during an earthquake.

Together, the U.S. and China should follow the cautionary approach embodied in Deng Xiaoping’s phrase, “Mozhe shitou guo he” or “Crossing the river by feeling for stones.”

My hope is we will continue to build the educational, economic, scientific, governmental, and people-to-people bridges between the U.S. and China that will enhance the friendship and trust that is necessary for our two countries to prosper.

An unstable China, makes for an unstable world. An America steeped in debt with an anemic economy does as well.  We need to keep in mind our destinies are inextricably linked and that how we manage the upcoming issues, tensions and problems will impact all of humanity. Going forward, all major world issues will intersect at the corner of Beijing and Washington, DC.

Let’s move forward with our eyes wide open, building bridges between two great nations with the clear understanding that digging moats or building Great Walls have never been a successful long term strategy.

We must grow and mature together. 

Tom Watkins serves on the University of Michigan Confucius Institute board of advisors and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation international advisory board.  He is the former state superintendent of schools and is currently a U.S./China business and educational consultant.