I have been urging more Mandarin and study abroad programs in Oregon's public schools and universities since the summer of 2006. This is the latest in a series of regular emails to all 90 Oregon legislators.
Dear Oregon State Representative / Senator,
FYI: Email sent to all 90 legislators plus others on 1/30/08.
Dear Senator / Representative,
Oregon needs more Mandarin programs in our public schools. With less than 1% of our K-12 students studying Mandarin, our next generations are just not going to be prepared for a world in which China has become a superpower and is a center of innovation.
In the views of authors of three recent articles on China: (1) "China will increasingly become a nation of innovators." (2) The US may be "competing -- and losing -- in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world's other superpowers: the European Union and China." And (3) "China is more partner than threat." All these articles in their own ways argue for the future importance of China to Oregon and, therefore, for more robust Mandarin and study abroad in China programs for Oregon students.
First, Rebecca Fannin’s post "Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race" (1/20/08) begins:
"Don't be surprised if the next Steve Jobs comes from China. Already, I can see the beginnings of this trend in the likes of entrepreneurs Jack Ma of e-commerce startup Alibaba, Robin Li of search engine Baidu, Gary Wang of video sharing service Tudou.com and Joe Chen of web 2.0 powerhouse Oak Pacific Interactive. Not only did they develop products at the same time or ahead of their U.S. counterparts, but they are beating big American brand names Google, Yahoo, MySpace and eBay in China.
"Back in the mid-1990s dotcom bubble, a coffee shop called Buck's in upscale Woodside, California was the epicenter of innovation, the place where business plans were scribbled on napkins and startups seeded. Today, the compass has shifted east to China."
And ends with "Over the next decade, China will increasingly become a nation of innovators rather than smart copycats or manufacturers."
Second, the article "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony" by Parag Khanna in the New York Times Magazine (1/27/08) looks ahead to the complex geopolitics of the year 2016 and sees China as one of the globe’s three dominant geopolitical entities.
"At best, America's unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war "peace dividend" was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing -- and losing -- in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world's other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules -- their own rules -- without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.
"The more we appreciate the differences among the American, European and Chinese worldviews, the more we will see the planetary stakes of the new global game. Previous eras of balance of power have been among European powers sharing a common culture. The cold war, too, was not truly an "East-West" struggle; it remained essentially a contest over Europe. What we have today, for the first time in history, is a global, multicivilizational, multipolar battle."
Third, the Los Angeles Times op-ed "Embrace China" (12/22/07) by Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen states:
"America's relationship with China is not zero-sum. Like other world powers -- India, Russia, Japan and the European Union -- China is more partner than threat. Many of our security interests overlap.
"China actually helps us protect our shores from radiological terrorist attacks by allowing the U.S. to station inspectors in the ports of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the key departure points for more than 3 million shipping containers headed to the West Coast each year. Like it or not, we also rely on China -- ground zero for avian influenza and other potential pandemics -- to spot and contain outbreaks. Without Beijing's deep involvement and cooperation, the U.S. will never persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Together, the U.S. and China represent both the problem and the solution to the global climate crisis."
So, please do not think of more Mandarin in the Oregon schools as merely an educational curriculum issue. It is a foreign policy and economic development issue of the highest priority. Further delays in developing more Mandarin programs put the lives and fortunes of our next generations at greater risks. In my thinking, the gap between what we now have as Mandarin programs in Oregon and what we need qualifies as an "emergency." Please act as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Respectfully – Dave Porter
PS: The full Rebecca Fannin article "Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning High Tech Race" can be found here.
The full Parag Khanna essay "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony" can be found here
The full op-ed "Embrace China" by Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen can be found here.
PPS: Representative Dennis Richardson and I have an article "Oregon & China – Opportunity for the Rising Generation" posted on the Oregon Catalyst (1/24/08). See here.
Note the post "Richardson gets it right on Chinese immersion" on the Oregon Independent here.