As we commence our “Year of China,” SAIS is certainly not alone in taking note of this country of one billion people. With its startling rate of economic growth, China has become a magnet for foreign investment and a powerhouse of international trade. For many, China stands as the transformational center of the Asian region; the emerging great power in the young 21st century. As I write this introduction in the last days of August, the figures have just come out reporting that China has now displaced the United States as the No. 1 exporter into the European Union. At the same time, the papers are filled with stories about the worsening pollution and looming water shortages and the high-profile investigation of corruption in the management of pension assets in the city of Shanghai. Each day brings the China-watcher many signposts along the road to an unknown destination.
For SAIS, with its campuses in Washington, D.C., Bologna and Nanjing, the road itself holds great fascination. We are interested in studying China from the perspective of its history and culture, and understanding the potential of a rising China—the dimensions of change and their impact. We begin our “Year of China” with the challenge of how best to educate all our students to understand China because that nation will play an important role in their lives of international engagement in the decades to come. Students coming of age today need to study the complex and tortured history of China under communism in the 20th century, and they need to appreciate that China today is not just the gleaming cities of the coast but the rural areas throughout the country, especially in the poorest interior provinces. As SAIS graduate Daniel Wright (former Washington, D.C., director of our Nanjing program) put it in his remarkable personal memoir of his years in Guizhou, The Promise of the Revolution, “the challenge for the China observer is to hold together the paradox and contradictions of both the people’s fulfillment and their struggle. To do otherwise would be to miss China’s complex reality.”
China Studies at SAIS, and indeed at The Johns Hopkins University as a whole, has a rich and proud history, one in which cutting-edge academic studies and policy involvement have been hallmarks. In the early 20th century, Frank J. Goodnow, the president of JHU, advised the young Republic of China and later wrote his classic, China: An Analysis. In the mid-20th century, the world-renowned- scholar of the inner Asian frontier, Owen Lattimore, was director of JHU’s Page School of International Relations, adviser to Chiang Kai-shek and later a vindicated target of national security investigations. In the latter part of the century, SAIS was honored by the arrival of A. Doak Barnett to sit in the George and Sadie Hyman Chair of China Studies. Barnett, a major contributor to the development of the China field nationally and author of the classic China on the Eve of Communist Takeover, testified before the Senate in the 1960s, calling for “containment without isolation” of China. In 1986, then-JHU President Steven Muller, along with then-SAIS Dean George Packard, pushed forward with the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, for which SAIS has had responsibility for the last 20 years of this joint venture with Nanjing University. In 1997, SAIS was fortunate indeed to recruit Professor David M. Lampton to take the Hyman Chair and direct China Studies. In 2004, Professor Lampton also became dean of faculty at SAIS. His scholarship and teaching, along with his thoughtful and constructive policy stance on U.S.-China relations, have provided students and the broader community at SAIS with the ideal education in this vital region.
During our “Year of China,” we will be celebrating two important enhancements of our educational program for that region. First, through the extraordinary generosity of the Starr Foundation, SAIS has received an endowment of $5 million to support a Dean’s Fund for the study of Asia. Although SAIS is renowned for its academic curriculum in international economics, international relations and regional studies, our school (as well as others) has not sought funding in the past to specifically enrich the student and scholarship experience across the school by facilitating a focus on a region or country by all programs. The farsighted Starr grant embraces the idea that all our future leaders in the international domain will need to have an understanding of emerging Asia and China, in particular.
Our second celebration comes at the conclusion of the academic year, when JHU President William R. Brody leads a delegation of trustees, alumni, faculty and administration to Nanjing to join with colleagues at Nanjing University in commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. We will mark this milestone with the dedication of our new building and campus in Nanjing as well as the initiation of the formal Hopkins-Nanjing master of arts degree. We are planning a grand event, and you will hear much more about the achievements and promise of our program in Nanjing in the coming months.
When I visited Nanjing for the first time as dean in 2002, I had the great fortune of participating in a trip led by our charismatic and deeply knowledgeable American Co-Director Robert Daly. He was taking a few days to teach a lucky group of us about the material culture of the Yangtze River in the region of Nanjing (silk, tea, vinegar and more). It was fascinating but, as I think of the year ahead, I particularly recall walking around the Marco Polo Wharf in Zhenjiang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On a cobbled street, we came across a stone lintel carved in bas relief. We could have passed it as rubble, but Robert lit up and pointed out the dragon on that stone with the carp swimming upstream. He then explained the reference to a Chinese legend often used to exhort Chinese children to study hard. It seems that carp swimming upstream to spawn, after tremendous effort, are said to turn into dragons when they reach the headwaters. The children are told that they too can turn into dragons (Confucian scholar-officials) if they study hard and excel in their state examinations. What we each see in China is dependent on what we know. The deeper our learning, the more penetrating our vision. Surely we cannot all be experts on China. But the fortune of those at SAIS is that we have wise and curious experts to light our path.
Professor Lampton leads off our China issue of SAISPHERE with his panoramic review of China’s outward reach, its internal challenges and the evolving implications for the United States as well as the international system. The essay encapsulates the rationale for a “Year of China” at SAIS. Walter Andersen and Surjit Mansingh remind us that less than 20 years ago India’s Rajiv Gandhi made his “ice-breaking” visit to China. Now, in 2006, the two countries are celebrating their “Year of Friendship.” Leaders on both sides have been deliberate in efforts to strengthen ties that favor economic cooperation and political respect. India’s goal of strategic autonomy, however, will not be compromised by ties with either China or the United States.
Going behind the stunning statistics of China’s growth and integration into the global economy, Pieter Bottelier enumerates the factors that led to the “meteoric rise.” There is no historical precedent for China’s impact, which is both widespread and differs in its effects on countries around the world.
David Brown looks at the challenge to China in managing its relations with Taiwan, as the Taiwanese themselves sort out their cultural and political identity. The large majority of Taiwanese are pragmatic about their relations with the mainland. And the Chinese leadership seems to have learned that carrots are better than sticks in countering national identity politics across the strait.
The dimensions of rivalry and even antagonism present in the Japan-China relationship are explored by Kent Calder, who reminds us that this is a unique historical moment, with the “unprecedented prospect” of the two countries simultaneously enjoying power and affluence. The relationship needs careful management and cannot simply depend on the shared economic interests to bring peace and security in the region.
David Calleo examines the potential for Chinese-European economic ties to develop into new structures for managing the international system. Europe may prove an excellent “balancer” as the 21st century accommodates to a rising China.
Looking to next fall’s 17th Party Congress, Carla Freeman offers insights into President Hu Jintao’s vision for Chinese Communist Party leadership by introducing us to likely appointees for high-level positions in the Standing Committee and the Politburo. She expects Hu to pursue legitimacy for the party through officials who will support the market economy, as well as those seeking greater social justice.
Janie Hsieh uses both her professional expertise in public health and her knowledge of China to explain the challenges to China’s public health system. The “marketization” of health care has resulted in large populations who are underserved and a growing challenge to public health in China and, of course, beyond. The good news is that China has taken steps to open up to the world community, but there is a “long road ahead.” Kenneth Keller describes how China’s population of 1.3 billion means that percentage changes in education, research and development and other measures of progress in science and technology quickly translate into formidable power on the world stage. Science and technology is an area where the United States and China can find scope for mutually beneficial cooperation, but there are trade-offs for China between political control and continued progress in science. Peter Lewis traces the evolution of China’s relations with Africa, as China has become a high-growth economic power, dependent on the commodities available from that continent. While China’s emphasis on nonintervention in the domestic affairs of economic partners enables poor governance where it already flourishes, the problems are widespread and historical. In the end, it is the Africans themselves who will have to craft the relationship to sustainable advantage.
Mohamed Mattar brings his great expertise on human rights issues related to “trafficking in persons” to explain the extent and nature of the problem in China. China is making significant efforts to prosecute and punish traffickers, but in transnational trafficking and in protecting victims of the practice, substantial work remains to be done.
Chinese higher education has made tremendous strides in recent decades, writes Kathryn Mohrman, taking particular note of the increasingly differentiated system that serves many students but also seeks to establish a more select group of great universities. If China should succeed in its ambitions to build world-class research universities with a special emphasis on science and technology, the reverberations will be felt in U.S. universities and beyond.
Don Oberdorfer guides us through the complex relations in Northeast Asia between China and the Koreas. Historical ties between Beijing and North Korea have evolved in parallel with China’s global engagement. From the days of the Korean War, to the Chinese vote in the U.N. Security Council condemning North Korea’s missile tests this past July, China’s relations with the South have grown and prospered while its relations with the North have diminished to not much more than a hedge against regional instability. Bruce Parrott takes us into the heart of international relations with his analysis of the “special challenge” that China poses in Russian foreign policy. Geopolitics in the region, balance of power vis-à-vis the United States and leveraging Russia’s ample energy resources are intertwined threads in the fabric of relations between these two countries—so important to one another and the rest of the world. Riordan Roett shines a spotlight on a new era for Latin American relations with China, symbolically marked by the visit of President Hu to the region in 2004. China’s commodity import needs and manufacturing exports have important implications for development in the region. At the same time, China’s strengthening relations with Venezuela and Cuba illustrate the attraction of an emerging power from outside the hemisphere to regimes less friendly to the United States. Jaspal Singh Sindharh traces the links between China’s spectacular growth and its concomitant need for energy resources and other commodities, with the potential for institutional development in the international energy market. China’s heavy reliance on coal moderates its demand in the oil market while highlighting the urgency of international cooperation such as foreseen in the Kyoto Agreement. Singh envisions “institutionalizing international cooperation” to avoid further intense competition and to develop the appropriate array of technologies for different parts of the world. Drawing on her great expertise, Anne Thurston gives us a glimpse of poverty in China, against the background of growing wealth in cities like Shanghai. We see the impressive contributions of social entrepreneurs who can work on the small scale that truly has impact on the lives of the poorest. At the same time, we learn of the fatal contradiction in the way of meaningful reform: The central government commits to alleviating poverty but threatens reprisals against those who would bring sunlight to corruption.
Sanam Vakil follows the path of China’s relations with the Middle East in recent decades. From a poor country that looked for partners in anti-West ideology, China has evolved into a global economic power seeking to enhance energy security through both arms sales and foreign investment.
Reflecting on our long history with China, I want to acknowledge the guidance and support of the SAIS community in helping develop this programmatic depth at the school. We are proud of all we have accomplished over the years through our China Studies Program, and we look forward to the same attentive support in other concentrations. SAIS alumni and friends are key to dynamic school development. I encourage you to stay involved—or to become involved—with SAIS. We need your help in many ways, including advice, ideas, gifts of your time and financial assistance. The positive momentum of the school, so evident in this issue of SAISPHERE, is ongoing, serious and exciting. We hope you will join us in continuing to build SAIS and its sphere of scholarship and education. Jessica P. Einhorn |
