Talking Points: November 18 - Dec 2, 2009

Talking Points
November 18 - December 2, 2009

“Don't mistake me for being an expert, because I've been here for three months. And I've come to the conclusion that "China expert" is kind of an oxymoron. And those who consider themselves to be China experts are kind of morons. So you take what you can, you learn what you can, and you begin to pull all the pieces together, and still it kind of remains sometimes a somewhat confused environment.”
     -- Jon Huntsman, US Ambassador to China, Nov. 17, 2009

"I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao… I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings." 
     -- Huntsman, Nov. 20, 2009

Ambassador Huntsman acknowledges that analysis is difficult when available information is incomplete or conflicting, but obviously took exception to those who complained President Barack Obama had not emphasized human rights, the value of the Chinese currency and other concerns in his meetings with top leaders.
 

White House photo.

A quick look at reporting on this visit suggests that Obama emphasized the multidimensional nature of US-China relations over particular issues and while noting differences on issues such as human rights, elected in public to emphasize areas of agreement. A look at reporting on earlier presidential visits suggests that the real impact of a visit is difficult to gauge at the time, in part because public comments and joint statements cannot always capture the intensity of discussions or incremental progress towards agreement. Further, examining such reports reveals how dramatically the US-China relationship has changed since the first presidential visit in 1972. At that time, emphasis was on complicating things for the Soviet Union. That hadn’t changed by the time of

Time magazine cover prior to Pres. Reagan's 1984 visit.

Ronald Reagan’s 1984 visit, but China’s economic reforms were already changing lives. On his way back to Washington, Reagan famously referred to China as a “so-called Communist country.” The brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 kept presidents away for almost a decade. When Bill Clinton visited in 1998, he offered repeated public affirmations of a commitment to human rights, but he had already decoupled economic negotiations from human rights monitoring. Soon the two sides would forge an agreement to bring China into the World Trade Organization. Economic, anti-terror, and nuclear weapons proliferation worries dominated George W. Bush’s four visits. Environmental issues were first raised at the presidential level during Clinton’s 1998 visit. The most concrete public outcome of the latest visit is agreement to cooperate on cleaner coal use, electric vehicle development, and other environmentally-friendly efforts.

The USC US-China Institute has assembled excerpts from reports on this and previous presidential visits. Please click here to see these along with links to speeches and documents made during the visits.

One of the pledges Obama made is to increase the number of Americans going to study in China to 100,000, roughly as many as the number of Chinese who are currently studying in the US. Details on how this is to be accomplished haven’t been put forward. Interest in China is rising dramatically (see our “On an Average Day” story from July). In 2007-2008, 13,188 American students went to China for short term or year-long study programs. This represented an increase of 19% over the previous year and is a sixfold increase over the 2,116 students who were studying in China when Clinton visited in June 1998.

Americans will have to dramatically change their habits if the goal of 100,000 is to be reached by 2013. Most Americans do not go abroad to study – only 262,416 (about 1.6% of all college students) went abroad in 2007-2008. China was the fifth most popular destination. The United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and France are ahead of China and received a total of 106,551 students that year. If 19% annual increases continued (and this is much faster growth than other top destinations), the US won’t have 100,000 students in China until 2017. Driven by China’s economic rise, and partly possible because of federal funding and Chinese government assistance (in the form of teachers), Chinese language study is expanding rapidly. This expanded pool of students with some language competency will help boost the number of Americans heading to China, but other assistance in the form of travel and tuition subsidies will be necessary if the 100,000 student target is to be reached in four years.

We know firsthand that many students are interested in going to China. Although we only announced the 2010 Shanghai Expo student ambassador program on Oct. 1, we received thousands of inquiries about it. And even though participation requires giving up either the spring or fall term at school, we received 599 applications from all over the US. We are in the process of selecting the 160 students who will serve at the USA Pavilion in Shanghai next year.

Finally, the American holiday season is near. Chinese factories have become quite important to celebrations here. David Redmon’s 2005 film Mardi Gras: Made in China contrasted the revelry and consumption associated with the festival with the long hours workers in China put in to produce the beads that are gleefully worn and tossed about in New Orleans. Two USC grads, Alicia Dwyer and Tom Xia, are currently at work producing Xmas Without China, which looks the US-China relationship through the experiences of two Los Angeles families. This US-China Christmas connection was in the news this week when US Customs officers here in Los Angeles opened a container from China labeled “Christmas ornaments” and instead found 316,000 glass bongs.

Thanks for reading Talking Points. We hope you’ll join us on Dec. 1 for the latest film in our documentary series. Thanks to support from the USC East Asian Studies Center, Gu Jin will be here to screen Dream Weavers, her 2008 film on the preparations for the Olympics.

Best wishes,
The USC U.S.-China Institute
http://china.usc.edu
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USC

11/19/2009: When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of Western Civilization
USC University Club, Banquet Room, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 5:30PM
The US-China Institute presents a talk by Martin Jacques on his new book, which argues that the twenty-first century will be different with the rise of China and the end of Western dominance.  

12/01/2009: Dream Weavers - Beijing 2008
USC, Leavey Auditorium
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost: Free
Time: 6:00PM - 8:00PM
The East Asian Studies Center and U.S.-China Institute present the screening of Dream Weavers - Beijing 2008 and Q&A with documentary filmmaker Gu Jun.

California 

 

 

11/19/2009: From Mao to Mozart: Issac Stern in China
Bowers Museum
Phone: 714.567.3600
Time: 2:00PM
The Bowers Museum presents a screening of Academy Award-winning "From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China," a 1980 documentary film about Western culture breaking into China.

 

11/19/2009: Indigenous Knowledge? The Politics of Traditional Chinese Medicine
UCLA
Address: 10383 Bunche Hall
Cost: Free
Time: 4:30PM - 6:00PM
UC Berkeley's Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Judith Farquhar on the tradition of medicine in China and its Western engagements. 
 
11/20/2009: The Transformation of China during the 1990’s
314 Royce Hall, UCLA
Time: 10:00AM - 5:30PM
The China Studies Graduate Student Colloquium presents Baizhu Chen, Associate Professor of Clinical Finance and Business Economics at USC, and R. Bin Wong, Professor of History at UCLA, for talks on the transformation of China that occurred during the 1990's.  
 
11/20/2009: When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Rise of a New Global Order
Bowers Museum
2002 N. Main Street , Santa Ana, CA 92706
Time: 1:30PM
The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk with Martin Jacques on China's rise. 
 
11/21/2009: Beyond the Surface: Bronze Mirrors from the Lloyd Cotsen Collection
314 Royce Hall, UCLA
Time: 10:00AM - 5:30PM
Two-day symposium hosted by the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology to showcase Lloyd Cotsen’s mirror collection from early China.

11/22/2009: Silver Spear
Bowers Museum
2002 N. Main Street , Santa Ana, CA 92706
Time: 1:30PM
The Bowers Museum presents a screening of "Silver Spear," a digital opera film. 
 
11/22/2009: Authors on Asia
10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 5:30PM
The Pacific Asia Museum presents Lisa See, author of the bestselling Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love. 
 
11/23/2009: Civil Society with Chinese Characteristics
10383 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Cost: Free
Time: 4:00PM - 5:30PM
The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents a talk by Song Qinghua on Chinese civil society.
 
11/24/2009: Yuja Wang and The Shanghai Symphony
Orange County Performing Arts Center’s Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Phone: (949) 553-2422
Time: 8:00PM
The Philharmonic Society presents a performance by Yuja Wang, led by conductor Long Yu. 

North America 

11/20/2009: 2nd Annual Conference on China's Economic Development and U.S.-China Economic Relations
Lindner Family Commons, The Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University 1957 E Street, NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC
Phone: 202-994-5886
Time: 9:00AM - 4:00PM
George Washington University presents their annual conference on U.S-China economic relations that will include discussions of current issues.

12/02/2009: 5th Annual Alaska-China Business Conference
For Information & Registration, please contact Greg Wolf.
Anchorage, Alaska
The one day conference will feature experts sharing their experiences of doing business in China.

Exhibitions 

08/16/2009 - 11/29/2009: Steeped in History: The Art of Tea
Fowler Museum
Cost: Free
The Fowler Museum at UCLA presents an exhibition on the history of tea in Asia, Europe, and America through art. 

09/11/2009 - 12/05/2009: Pearl of the Snowlands: Buddhist Printing at the Derge Parkhang
The Center for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash Avenue, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60605
This exhibit will present photographs, interviews and artifacts collected in Derge Parkhang. 

 

09/18/2009 - 01/09/2010: Imagining China: The View from Europe, 1550-1700
Folger Great Hall
201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003
Cost: Free
Phone: (202) 544-7077
Celebrate the opening of the latest exhibition at Folger Shakespeare Library.

 
09/17/2009 - 01/17/2010: Calligraffiti: Writing in Contemporary Chinese and Latino Art
Pacific Asia Museum
46 North Los Robles Avenue, Pasadena, California 91101
Phone: (626) 449-2742
Calligraffiti: Writing in Contemporary Chinese and Latino Art addresses issues of power, culture, and universality. 

11/03/2008 - 11/03/2009: Ancient Arts of China: A 5000 Year Legacy
Bowers Museum
2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
Bowers Museum presents a collection that portrays the evolution of Chinese technology, art and culture. 

11/14/2008 - 11/14/2009: Chinese Art: A Seattle Perspective
Seatle Asian Art Museum
1400 East Prospect Street , Volunteer Park , Seattle, WA 98112–3303
The Seattle Asian Art Museum presents an opportunity to see a collection with representative works from each dynastic period. 

11/15/2008 - 11/15/2009: Masters of Adornment: The Miao People of China
Bowers Museum
2002 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California 92706
The Bowers Museum presents a collection of exquisite textiles and silver jewelry that highlights the beauty and wealth of the Miao peoples of southwest China. 

02/12/2009 - 02/12/2010: Art of Adornment: Tribal Beauty
Bowers Museum
2002 N. Main, Santa Ana, CA
Cost: $5
An exhibit featuring body adornments from indigenous peoples around the world 

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