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December 2007 Issue
CHINA:
A RECENT TIMELINE
Oct. 1, 1949
People’s Republic of China founded by Communist Party leader Mao
Zedong after defeat of Nationalist forces. Nationalists, led by Chiang
Kaishek, flee to Taiwan.
1966–1976
Cultural Revolution. Mao’s political maneuvers to weed out opponents
result in chaotic period of forced exiles, torture, and famine. Period
ends with Mao’s death in 1976.
1972
U.S. and China resume trade relations after war with Japan, civil war,
and Mao’s isolationist leadership end.
1978
Deng Xiaoping begins free market and some social reforms.
1979
U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping establish
full diplomatic relations between the two countries.
1989
By government order, the People’s Liberation Army violently ends
pro-democracy activity in Tiananmen Square.
Early 1990s
Deng takes his famous “Southern Tour” to promote continuation of
economic opening and continues reform in real estate, finance, and
trade. The Shanghai Stock Exchange is formed.
July 1, 1997
Britain hands Hong Kong back over to China. Hong Kong is granted
special status to control local economic and political matters.
July 2001
Beijing wins bid to host 2008 Olympic Games.
November 2001
China joins the World Trade Organization.
2003–2004
Hu Jintao becomes China’s president. Then he consolidates power,
becoming Communist Party leader.
March 15, 2007
FDA is notified of pet illness and death of cats and dogs in the
United States due to pet food. Contaminants were found in
Chinese-imported vegetable proteins. A series of pet food, toothpaste,
and toy recalls of Chinese-imported products ensues.
December 2007 Issue
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By Dara McCoy
That China,
the world’s largest communist nation, has emerged an economic and
political juggernaut is no longer news. With pet food and toy recalls,
tainted toothpaste, diplomatic roles in nuclear disarmament talks
between the U.S. and North Korea, 2008 Olympic hosting, and what the
2007 World Bank reports as the world’s fourth largest gross domestic
product (GDP), China is the news. U.S. institutions of higher
education are preparing new generations of policymakers, international
workers, and globally aware citizens who will shape the future — a
future in which the United States may or may not be the leading world
power.
 “In early July, I walked out of Qi
Pu Lu in Shanghai, China, one of the area’s most infamous black
markets. Amid the beggars, smells of sizzling, spicy street food, and
the buzz of people, I looked for the quickest way out of the street.
As I scanned the curbs for the bus stop, a massive Soviet-style
apartment complex towered above the street. I stood in awe and wonder
at the architecture, then at the clothes drying on the windows, the
rusting air conditioning units with a cascade of rusting metal oozing
down the building. Soon, the skyline of Shanghai caught my eye
cresting above the roof. To see the ultra-sleek, modern skyline of
Shanghai above the outdated apartments awestruck me. The dichotomy of
old and new in China is so striking. You see it in the mentality of
people, in thought, business, cars, clothing, just about anything
here. To look up and see a sleek skyscraper overshadowing a crowded
apartment complex makes me only wonder what must be running through
the minds of those who call both of those places home.” —Will
Radke ‘08, from China in summer 2007, researching Chinese
intellectual property in relation to counterfeit goods as part of a
Mellon Fellowship
A Quick History Lesson
In 1949, after World War II and a civil
war between Chinese Communists and Nationalists that ended in the
Nationalists retreating to Taiwan, Communist Party leader Mao Zedong
founded the People’s Republic of China known to the world today.“
The emergence of China today is in an
odd way a result of or reaction to the most radical policies of Mao’s
regime,” said Don Rodgers, Austin College assistant professor
of political science. “Moving from the Great Leap Forward through the
Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) destroyed much
of its own legitimacy and credibility, and opened the door for the
emergence of more moderate leadership and the implementation of more
moderate market and social reforms that helped unleash the productive
power of the Chinese people.”
Most experts agree that free market
reforms implemented around 1978 by new Communist leader Deng Xiaoping
not only have been the driving force behind China’s economic success,
but also have been key for Communist Party control in recent decades.
The Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward were, in short, periods
of chaos, violence, and power struggles within the Communist Party.
Mao’s radical communist actions to secure power and force increased
industrial production created the period still referred to as the “10
bad years” by the Chinese, and ultimately weakened the party.
Through Deng Xiaoping’s “shrewd
political maneuvering,” the party regained relevance and control with
the people by focusing on economic reforms and improving the material
quality of life in China, Rodgers said. Today, China’s economic growth
and social reforms have spurred its growth, modernization, and
entrance into the world economic and political scene; but with a new
identity as a world leader, China’s responsibilities and issues now
concern the world.
Be Afraid, America?
Don Rodgers, assistant professor of
political science, offered this opinion on the future of China:
“The United States must pay close attention to the changes
occurring in China, but it is neither appropriate nor useful to be
afraid of China’s rise. We must be conscious of the fact that
China’s economic development and increasing military strength are
altering the economic, political, and security environment in Asia
and across the globe. This change presents the U.S. with both
opportunities and challenges to which we must respond.
“The United States still maintains economic and
military superiority and, with an appropriate comprehension of
China’s situation and the impact China is having on the world, the
United States can manage the competition and challenges generated
by China. Allowing ourselves to let fear guide our perceptions and
reactions will prevent us from developing appropriate policy
responses.
“I also would argue that people who react to
China’s rise with fear have an overly optimistic view of what is
happening in China. China is facing numerous domestic, political,
and economic problems that threaten its continued progress. China
is in a precarious position. That is, I believe that China is
potentially as close to an economic downturn as it is to economic
rise.
“Although the comparison is not perfect, we
might draw a useful lesson from our experience dealing with Japan
in the 1980s. We were convinced that the Japanese had developed
appropriate models of industrialization and management that would
allow Japan to surpass the U.S. in economic strength. Numerous
books were published telling us what we were doing wrong and what
the Japanese were doing right, and how we had to be afraid of the
rise of the Japanese economy. This overly optimistic view of Japan
blinded us to the problems in the Japanese economy and political
system, problems which eventually led to the bursting of the
Japanese economic bubble.
“Thus, to respond to China today we must develop
a sound understanding of China’s political and economic conditions
from which we can calmly and rationally develop appropriate policy
responses.” |
Modernizing Economy Leaves
Political and Social Reform Behind?
A trip to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing,
or many other sites along China’s eastern coastline could lull a
visitor into thinking China’s economic success is widespread, but the
country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita ranks 84th, according
to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Fact book 2006 estimates. A
large portion of China’s 1.3 billion people lives in the countryside
and may never tote iPhones, wear Polo shirts, or drive Mercedes like the
middle-class portion living in booming cities.
Despite lifting almost
400 million people above the $1-a-day poverty level in the past 20
years, China is still home to 18 percent of the world’s poor, according
to World Bank figures. “A lot of the media and business attention is
focused along the east coast corridor where it is incredibly modern and
developed, but go an hour from Shanghai and it is 1949 again,” said
Rodgers, who visits China frequently for business dealings,
personal travel, and academic trips. “You’ve got little villages
with horrible sanitary conditions, not much electricity, and people
unemployed. ”Despite some liberal social reforms, human rights issues in
China remain a concern. Rodgers said people in China have more
opportunity now than in the past to talk privately about politics and
perhaps even criticize the government, but the party has increased
control and repression of the media and political language over the past
year and maintains extensive control over political and social
organizations. Jordan DiBona ’08, who has spent more than a year
studying in Beijing, noticed censorship of Web sites such as Wikipedia
and BBC news via the party’s significant firewalls.“
From my previous
trips to China, I developed the false pretense that all of China was
changing,” said Will Radke ’08, Austin College double major in international economics and Asian studies, who spent the last
three summers in China — two in internships with Deloitte and 2007 as a
Mellon Fellow — and has witnessed firsthand the economic modernization
of China’s coastal cities. “The government remains as totalitarian as
ever, ”he said. “China is changing cosmetically and economically, but
not politically.”
China and the Rest of the World
China’s emergence into world prominence
is important to all who share this planet if for no reasons other than
the country’s population and sheer size: 1.3billion, a whopping 20
percent of Earth’s population, and the fourth largest country in area,
according to the National Geographic Web site. China’s impact on the
world today is impressive, but its potential influence in the future
is even more staggering to consider. “In 2004,China accounted for half
of global growth in metal demands and one-third global growth in oil
demand,” according to the World Bank Web site. World Bank also
reported China’s GDP has seen a six-fold increase over 20 years as
Asia’s fastest growing economy. Radke, who has traveled to Guangzhou,
Hong Kong, and Shanghai, sees China as a “waiting dragon.” “Yes, China
is roaring now but ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,’” Radke said. “When
the power of 1.3 billion consumers is fully unleashed, wow, that’s
where the real money is.”
China’s massive consumption and
production capabilities greatly affect the world’s markets and
coincide with its growing world political influence.
The accelerated growth of a country
with such large land mass and population impacts the Earth’s
environment through the high volume of industrial activity and
motorization, according to World Bank. Pollution is even more
exaggerated in China because the country lags behind more modern
nations’ energy efficiency and environmentally-conscious regulations.
World Bank reported that 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are
in China.
Rodgers said a preliminary World Bank
report released in March 2007 on the cost of pollution in China
reported estimates of as many as 750,000premature deaths a year due to
water and air pollution. Though the report initially had the Chinese
government’s cooperation, Rodgers said the government has since
refuted the report. The Communist Party asked the World Bank for
changes before the final report is released, sending the report into
review, and causing astir about China’s possible censorship of the
findings. “China’s environmental issues cannot be exaggerated,” Radke
said. “On my train ride south through rural China, I passed active
coal factory after coal factory. My seven days in Shanghai this trip
saw no clear skies.”
Trade Relations: The United States and China
The first known U.S.-China trade occurred in
1784, but in 1929 trade between China and the West suffered due to
Chinese nationalism, according to a paper by deputy U.S. trade
representative Jon Huntsman, Jr., in 2002. “Throughout the next
two decades, trade suffered as China was wracked by war with Japan
and by a civil war that delivered Mao’s Communist Party to power
in 1949. For the next 22 years, the United States had no trade
with China, while the Chinese people endured isolation from the
West, famine wrought by the Great Leap Forward, and the tremendous
chaos of the Cultural Revolution,” wrote Huntsman. U.S. and China
trade relations got off the ground again in 1972 when President
Nixon visited the country. That same year, Communist China under
Mao placed its first order for an American product — fiberboard
from forest products company Weyerhaeuser, according to Huntsman’s
paper.
China entered the world market in full force
when joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.
Non-compliance with WTO regulations and recent issues with pet
food recalls, tainted toothpaste, and other Chinese imports have
raised questions about the quality of Chinese products and caused
concern with its world trading partners. “China’sgoing to be in
for a rough ride because it’s going to learn that it has
responsibilities as well as rights being in the WTO. Then, I think
you will start to see some of this really start to bite the
Chinese economy,” said Gordan Chang, author of The Coming Collapse
of China, via a conference call with Don Rodgers, assistant
professor of political science, and two Austin College students in
July.
Chang said he believes the Communist Party will
collapse in this decade, possibly triggered by a major fall in the
economy after the 2008 Olympics, which would take away party
support hinged on economic success. “I just don’t think the
Communist Party can maintain itself in essentially a modernizing
society,” said Chang. “China has not had a recession for quite
some time, and I’ve been writing about the post-Olympic period as
being a difficult one for Beijing.”
Melanie Fox Kean, assistant professor of
economics at Austin College, had a less doom-and-gloom outlook,
thinking the spate of questionable imports could eventually
improve trade relations with China. “As more and more scrutiny is
given to Chinese imports and more controls are put in place, that
could actually generate confidence in these products,” she said.
Whether China’s future includes economic
collapse or continued success, Fox Kean believes that global
economies will adapt without major upheaval. “The global economies
are very intertwined,” she said. “This intertwining and
interdependence can help prevent catastrophe. The increasing
amount of economic interdependence gives all economies involved
more incentive to stick to sound monetary and finance principles
and pressure others to do the same.” |
Embracing the World
As the world seems to get smaller every
day, the average citizen of any country might be well served to become
more of a global citizen in awareness and understanding of world
events. Austin College administrators have long embraced such efforts.
“We have a tremendous commitment at the institution toward global
awareness,” said Mike Imhoff, vice president for Academic
Affairs and dean of the faculty. “It is important in terms of being a
citizen that you become more of a global citizen, that you have an
understanding of these global issues. What Austin College can do to
infuse that into our own programs is really important to our
students.”
 In fall 2007,Austin College introduced
its first tenure-track Chinese language faculty member, Anne Xu,
and a series of courses in the language. The new courses quickly
caught the interest of Austin College students. For fall2007, 23
students enrolled in Xu’s “Beginning Chinese I” course, 10 in “Modern
and Contemporary China Through Filmmakers,” and three in
“IntermediateChinese I.”
The Chinese language courses, offered
through the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, also enhance
the College’s Asian Studies program, which formally began offering a
minor in 2001. Courses addressing Asian nations and cultures had long
been part of the curriculum, but the program recently has grown in
prominence under the strong leadership of several faculty members and
the support of a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. As of
fall 2007, an Asian Studies major also is available to students. Since
2001, the program’s annual Asia Week has offered the entire community
the opportunity to learn through Asian film, speakers, crafts, food,
and cultural performances. “We have been going strong since then,”
said Jackie Moore, professor of history and head of the Asian
studies program for seven years before Scott Langton, associate
professor of Japanese, took over in2007. The College’s study abroad
program, too, has seen increasing interest in Asia from students. In
Fall 2007,seven Austin College students are studying in Asia, more
than in the previous two terms combined. Five students are studying in
Japan this fall and two are in China.
The College’s expanding curriculum is
meant to fulfill its responsibility to students who will live and work
in an ever-changing world, a world where China’s influence and power
is growing. China maintains rhetoric about a “peaceful rise,” but
Rodgers said China has dramatically increased defense spending to
catch up to world military powers, giving the world even more reason
to keep an eye toward China. “Today’s China has the power to influence
almost every country of the world and is on the fast track to do much
more than simply catch up,” DiBona said. “It is easy to talk about the
importance of China, but very difficult to implement programs that
facilitate learning and experience on along-term scale as Austin
College does.”
Austin College administrators and
faculty plan to continue to provide valuable experiences and increase
awareness not only for students like DiBona and Radke, who were
already interested in China, but to all Austin College students
through courses, faculty involvement, and special on-campus speakers
and programs. “Chinapresents the world with great opportunities and
great threats,” said Rodgers. “It is very important for our students
to be aware of the impact China’s emergence is having on
environmental, economic, political, and security issues, and to
understand that the Chinese people have their own goals and strategies
to move ahead in the 21st century.”
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