I have been urging more Mandarin and study abroad programs for Oregon's public schools and universities since the summer of 2006. This 6/12/08 email is the latest in a series of regular emails to all 90 Oregon legislators.
Dear Oregon State Senator / Representative,
Please, I again urge the legislature to hold hearings on changes and economic growth in Asia, especially China, and to pass legislation to increase Mandarin and study abroad programs for our public K-16 students. The world is changing and the Legislature needs to stay informed and think through the implications of these global changes for Oregon, especially for our educational system.
Consider the scale of global change now taking place. We are in the midst of a big historic change. Kishore Mahbubani in his new book "The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East" quotes former Harvard President Larry Summers as saying:
They called it the Industrial Revolution because for the first time in human history standards of living rose at a rate where there were noticeable changes in standards of living in a human life span – changes of perhaps 50 percent. At current growth rates in Asia standards of living may rise 100 fold, 10,000 percent within a human life span. The rise of Asia and all that follows it will be the dominant story in history books written 300 years from now with the Cold War and the rise of Islam as secondary stories.
And, as Oregon grapples with global warming issues and focuses on "sustainability" for economic development, please note the growing importance of China in the following Wired magazine article titled "The People’s Republic Leads the Way in Alternative-Energy Hardware:"
Pop quiz: Who’s the volume dealer in alternative-energy hardware? If you said choking, smoking, coal-toking China, give yourself a carbon credit.
Consider solar cells, the least carbon-intensive option after nuclear, wind, and biomass, according to an analysis by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In 2007, photovoltaic factories in the People’s Republic tripled production, grabbing 35 percent of the global market and making China the world’s number one producer. How about rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, critical for super efficient electric vehicles? Chinese manufacturers will soon rule that world, too. Windmills? "Prepare for the onslaught of relatively inexpensive Chinese turbines," says Steve Sawyer, head of the Global Wind Energy Council. His forecast: China will produce enough gear to generate 10 gigawatts of power annually by 2010 — more than half the capacity that the whole world installed in 2007.
China has three big reasons for jumping feet first into the carbon fight. Obviously, there’s the threat of climate change – flooding in China’s coastal cities, drought in the country’s interior. Second, there’s political instability: Air and water pollution is already a flash point for public protest. And then there’s the burgeoning export market for green products stamped made in China.
Will renovating the planet spur the first wave of homegrown Chinese tech innovation? Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, thinks so. "China has as much or more at stake than anyone," he said at a recent corporate summit. "Solar energy, carbon sequestration — we’re going to be blown away by China’s progress over the next couple of decades." If only they could clean up Beijing’s air in time for the summer Olympics.
With less than one percent of our K-12 students now studying Mandarin, and with far too few students studying abroad anywhere, and with a subcommittee of the Board of Higher Education preparing a document "Portland’s Higher Education Agenda for the 21st Century" without mentioning the rise of China, we simply are not up to date in our thinking about the changing world nor preparing our next generations for the challenges they will face.
As an Oregon legislator, you are on the front lines of efforts to understand these global changes and to prepare the U.S. for the challenges (economic, national security) they pose. Oregon needs to invest more in preparing our next generations so that they have the skills to deal with China. This means more Mandarin programs and more study abroad opportunities. You have the responsibility and authority to change Oregon’s educational system so that more of our students study Mandarin and more study abroad. Please step up to the challenge. Please do not let Oregon’s future generations down.
Thank you.
Respectfully - Dave Porter
PS - The Wired magazine article "The People’s Republic Leads the Way in Alternative-Energy Hardware" is here. A supporting article documenting China’s 35% of global solar manufacturing is here, and a supporting document about China’s concern for flooding is the China Daily article "Rising seas pose danger to big cities" here.
PPS – Recall that Michael Klare in his National Public Radio interview said: "By the year 2030, it is expected that China will use half of the world’s coal. And unfortunately China intends to use a kind of primitive, by modern standards, coal burning facilities to generate electricity. And, if this continues to be the case, we are all hostage on the planet to China’s coal use, because this will be the leading source of green house gas, carbon dioxide producing emissions. And there will be no hope of averting the worse global climate change disasters." So we need strategies both to get China to reduce its green house gas emissions and for us to stay competitive with China as China does develop new green technologies and manufacturing facilities. Teaching our next generations Mandarin and getting them familiar with China from time spent there should be essential components of those strategies. The Klare NPR interview is here.