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.This was is titled:
"Possibly the most important economic question in this century is whether or not we get the economic relationship with China right."
Dear Senator / Representative,
Please hold legislative hearings on economic growth and change in Asia, what it means for Oregon and how Oregon should respond. Begin by asking academic and business experts to brief you on what is happening. To date the Legislature has not held even one hearing on economic growth and change in Asia, the ongoing event that is more important than 9/11 and the most important event in our lifetimes. Not only does the Legislature need to inform its members, it needs to begin to inform the Oregon public of the challenges ahead.
Recall that former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers said "that growth and change in Asia are the most important things to happen during our lifetimes." That NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote "that when the history of this era is written, the trend that historians will cite as the most significant will not be 9/11 and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be the rise of China and India." And that NY Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote "The 21st century will belong to Asia, and young Americans need to study Asia, live in it and learn its languages."
Two recent statements, while they promote different responses, further highlight the central significance of economic growth and change in Asia.
First, Ambassador Alan Holmer, Special Envoy for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue, (raised in Oregon, former Senator Packwood’s Chief-of-Staff) was recently in Portland and told the Portland City Club (2/15/08):
"Possibly the most important economic question in this century is whether or not we get the economic relationship with China right. By that I mean a relationship that is stable, growing, mutually beneficial and supportive of bilateral relations.
"Consider two different visions of the US – China relationship. The first is a vision that is dark and problematic. It is a future of a superpower and a rising superpower on a collision course, increasingly suspicious of the others intentions, scrambling in a zero sum competition for resources and influence, oblivious to the possibilities of mutual interests. It is a future in which we see each other through charactatures. This relationship is fragile and can be cracked easily by misunderstanding and accident. That is one vision.
"The second vision is one that is far more hopeful and optimistic. It is one in which our ability to work together matches the degree to which our economies are already so deeply integrated. In this future we see leadership of each of our countries communicating well, growing in trust, working through misunderstanding and crises, and expanding all possible common interests, while recognizing distinct national goals. In this vision, I also see people in each nation that recognize our commonalities: that we mutually benefit from trade, investment, and exchange of people and ideas.
"It is this second vision that we seek to promote in the Strategic Economic Dialogue. There is hardly any issue from trade to national security to climate change, or a place from North Korea to Iran to Sudan where American and Chinese interests do not increasing overlap."
My arguments to you and your fellow legislators is that we do not get Ambassador Holmer’s second vision just because we want it. It will take work, and an essential part of that work is to invest in the skills of our next generations. More of them need to know Mandarin and have a good understanding of China from having spent time there. Our job is to teach them and send them.
And second, yet another academic article places China at the economic and geopolitical center of the 21st century (and suggests an emphasis on building multilateral organizations as a US strategy in response). The opening of Princeton Professor G. John Ikenberry’s "Foreign Affairs" article "The Rise of China and the Future of the West" (January/.February, 2008) states:
"The rise of China will undoubtedly be one of the great dramas of the twenty-first century. China's extraordinary economic growth and active diplomacy are already transforming East Asia, and future decades will see even greater increases in Chinese power and influence. But exactly how this drama will play out is an open question. Will China overthrow the existing order or become a part of it? And what, if anything, can the United States do to maintain its position as China rises?
"Some observers believe that the American era is coming to an end, as the Western-oriented world order is replaced by one increasingly dominated by the East. The historian Niall Ferguson has written that the bloody twentieth century witnessed "the descent of the West" and "a reorientation of the world" toward the East. Realists go on to note that as China gets more powerful and the United States' position erodes, two things are likely to happen: China will try to use its growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests, and other states in the system -- especially the declining hegemon -- will start to see China as a growing security threat. The result of these developments, they predict, will be tension, distrust, and conflict, the typical features of a power transition. In this view, the drama of China's rise will feature an increasingly powerful China and a declining United States locked in an epic battle over the rules and leadership of the international system. And as the world's largest country emerges not from within but outside the established post-World War II international order, it is a drama that will end with the grand ascendance of China and the onset of an Asian-centered world order...."
"...As it faces an ascendant China, the United States should remember that its leadership of the Western order allows it to shape the environment in which China will make critical strategic choices. If it wants to preserve this leadership, Washington must work to strengthen the rules and institutions that underpin that order -- making it even easier to join and harder to overturn. U.S. grand strategy should be built around the motto "The road to the East runs through the West." It must sink the roots of this order as deeply as possible, giving China greater incentives for integration than for opposition and increasing the chances that the system will survive even after U.S. relative power has declined.
The United States' "unipolar moment" will inevitably end. If the defining struggle of the twenty-first century is between China and the United States, China will have the advantage. If the defining struggle is between China and a revived Western system, the West will triumph."
Note that both Ambassador Holmer and Professor Ikenberry place China high on the list of issues that will determine our future. The Oregon Legislature should hold its first informational hearing to hear from academic and business experts what is happening there. It can be held in the interim after the special session, but it should be a priority.
Thank you.
Respectfully – Dave Porter
PS: I’ve also put parts of my testimony before the Oregon Senate Committee on Education and General Government on 2/13/08 (the hearing topic was foreign language education in K-12) on my website here for the general testimony and here for my "High School Study Abroad Scholarship Program."
PPS: Professors Ikenberry’s article can be found here.There are more China related articles in that issue of Foreign Affairs. See the table on contents here.