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OYCF Fourth Annual Retreat Summary Perspectives Editors WTO,
Olympics & 9/11: A New China Facing A New World (Editors' Note: The Overseas Young Chinese Forum (OYCF), the publisher of Perspectives, held its fourth annual retreat during May 24 to May 27, 2002 in the historical city of Philadelphia. More than 70 scholars, students and professionals attended this retreat. The theme of the retreat was "WTO, Olympics & 9/11: A New China Facing A New World." Through nine panels, speakers and participants discussed issues challenging China, including coping with WTO, political changes, law and constitutionalism, US-China relations, universal vs. Chinese values and identity issues. All presentations elicited heated discussions from the audience. The following is a brief summary of the discussion. The moderator summarized his or her panel, and some of the panel summaries were reviewed and revised by the speakers. Junling Ma, Catherine Ying and Zili Zhuang edited the entire retreat summary.) Panel
1: WTO and Institutional Reform in China The
retreat commenced with the panel on China's accession into
the WTO and its impact. Dr. Huang spoke first, and he focused on the challenges the entry into the WTO would bring on China's financial system and financial stability. He started out by noting the serious consequences of financial crises. As illustrated by the experiences of some countries (e.g. Chile, some Northern European countries and Indonesia), a financial crisis can wipe out a country's GDP by as much as 30%, and the depressed economy could take years to recover. China's need for development and stability cannot afford to go through such a financial crisis, thus it is imperative that China establishes a sound financial system and the capability to avoid and manage financial crises. Currently, there are three models of financial system from which China can learn: the financial market dominated model (U.S.), the bank dominated model (Japan and Korea), and the Taiwan model, which is based on enterprises and informal networks. Each of the three models would have its advantages and disadvantages when applied to China. Dr. Huang argued that, to build up a sound financial system based on modern banking system, China would need to follow what he called a "staged, diversified, moderately pioneering and internationalized" strategy. This poses an immense challenge as China only has a five-year window to accomplish the task after its WTO accession. A major concern in this regard is balancing of stability and competitiveness in the banking system. During the process of building a modern financial system, the Chinese government will need to develop institutional capacity to prevent financial crises, to manage such a crisis should it occur, and to develop an early warning system. This will need to involve government policy makers at the highest level and the best minds from the academic community. The second speaker is Professor Tian. Professor Tian focused his talk on the impact of China's WTO accession on its agriculture and challenges of competition without protection. The WTO agreement requires not only tariff reductions, but also non-tariff reductions. Professor Tian noted, however, that China's current annual agricultural support is about 50-billion RMB, amounting to only about 3.5% of the total value of agricultural output, far below the 10% allowed by WTO Agricultural Agreement for developing countries, and even below the 5% allowed for developed countries. According to conditions agreed for China's accession, China can provide 8.5% of total value of agricultural output for agricultural support, though the forms of support have to be altered from the current price support, which is against WTO rules. According to official statistics, currently 50% of China's labor force works in the agricultural sector and 69% of China's population lives in rural areas. The entry into the WTO could cost as many as 11 million jobs, which inevitably would create significant pressure on social stability. Professor Tian argued that China would need to make some structural adjustments. Then Professor Tian discussed China's tax-for-fee reform, pursuant to which local governments in rural areas will replace taxes with various fees on farmers, in an effort to bring transparency and to reduce the burdens on farmers. The reform has been undergoing in some provinces including Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and lately Shanxi, but it has not been easy, as various interest groups do not want to give up their benefits and vested interests. The third speaker is Mr. Zhou, who discussed China's commitment to honor its obligations following its entry into the WTO and the impact of such entry on China's legal systems. First he noted that people tend to doubt China's ability or sincerity in fulfilling its obligations under the WTO. However, he pointed out that the accession negotiations took 15 years, and during this process, China has almost developed a national consensus that the entry is beneficial to the economy as a whole. The Chinese government has mobilized the whole nation to learn about the WTO and to move to transform the systems toward compliance. WTO has indeed become one of the most spoken words in China today. The government has rewritten numerous existing laws and promulgated new laws to comply with the WTO rules. It has responded to some of the antidumping lawsuits against China, e.g., the recent steel Section 301 case filed by the US government against many countries including China. China has also initiated antidumping investigations against other countries. Because China has made so much effort in preparing for the WTO entry, it is not likely that there will be any serious disruption in coming years. Nevertheless, the problem is not writing laws in compliance with the WTO rules, but is whether China will carry out the laws and how. Doubtless to say, there is still a lot China can do to improve its law enforcement, especially with respect to fighting local protectionism. Mr. Zhou is confident, however, that as long as the Chinese government has the resolve to push forward the reforms, it will succeed. Following the presentation, the audience asked questions regarding bad debts of Chinese banks, possible RMB devaluation, financial transparency, the Japan-Korean model, and the government's role in developing China's agriculture sector after the WTO entry. All three speakers offered their views on these issues. Panel
2: Political Changes in China In this panel, Professor Qiang Li of Tsinghua University and Professor Qingguo Jia of Peking University discussed political changes that have occurred and are occurring in China, and the challenges China faces in maintaining political stability. Both scholars expressed "cautious optimism" about China's political future. Professor Li first noted that China has maintained political stability despite all the talks and forecast of "imminent collapse" of China over the years. What explains this stability? Stability requires that a state resolve two critical problems: survival issue for the people (safety net related, such as employment, social security and economic welfare) and the political unity of the ruling group. At the grass root level, China's economic reform over the last two decades has significantly improved the livelihood of its people; and at the ruling group level, the current governing body represents a coalition of three elite groups, namely, the political elite, the technocrat elite and the economic elite. This is not to say that China lacks threat to stability. To name but a few, the drastically increasing gap between the newly rich and the poor, the protests by unemployed workers, the increasingly burdened peasants, and the population pressure. In addition, China's accession into the WTO poses increasing challenges to the government, as it requires a decrease of government authority and deregulation. Nevertheless, the economic development has benefited the bulk of the population, which lays the foundation for stability. China also sees the emergence of a new middle class which, though small in terms of percentage of the population, is numerous in absolute numbers and extremely resourceful. This inevitably represents a stabilizing factor. Professor Li concluded that none of the existing two models explaining political changes in a society-authoritarian approach and group politics theory-seems to be adequate in explaining China's development. If China is successful in its current efforts, its experience will create a third model for the transformation of socialist countries. In his presentation, Professor Jia elaborates on the dynamic relationship between political stability and economic reform in China, and the importance of maintaining political stability. China is at a critical stage of political transformation, with three overlapping features: industrialization process, transition from central planning to market economy, and transformation of political leadership, each with its intrinsic vulnerability. First, during the take-off period, economic development has resulted in higher level of expectation and intensified sense of depravation for the underclass, which directly threatens the status quo. Second, the transition from central planning to market economy, and the resulting co-existence of the dual systems, have become a source of conflicts of different values, concepts and behaviors. Third, the transition of power from the old generation (strong and charismatic leaders with weak institution) to the younger technocrat and elite group (strong institution but weak individuals) is unpredictable, susceptible to disruption and may lead to instability. The break of any part of the critical chain can bring social unrest and chaos to China, hence the end of any hope for political transformation. The Chinese government has been acting in response to such pressure. And in the process, China has witnessed real positive political changes, institutional as well as ideological, including improvements in the legal systems, the establishment of the meritocracy and civil services system, the appearance of village elections, and the wide acceptance of ideas of market economy, democracy and rule of law in the value system. The presentation was followed by heated discussions on China's political reform, social transformation, and challenges to long-term stability. Panel
3: Law, Rule of Law and Constitutionalism The speakers of this panel are Dr. Bo Li, a practicing lawyer with the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, and Dr. Shigong Jiang, a lecturer of Peking University Law School and a visiting scholar at Columbia law school. Dr. Li raised a fundamental issue - "What Is Law." He discussed the difference between law and legislation, and stressed the importance of this distinction in building up China's legal system. Dr. Li pointed out two well-established principles of rule of law, namely, the supremacy of law and limits on legislative power, emphasizing the importance of judicial review and law finding by independent judges. According to Dr. Li, legislation is not law itself, law is not a simple accumulation of legislations, and China cannot achieve rule of law by simply passing legislations. While written legislation is a representation of the will of the legislature and even the will of majority of the people, it does not necessarily embody the spirit of law. The concept of law has embedded in it a sense of justice and what is right, which is the source for imposing limit on the very power of those who makes legislation. As we all know, there can be bad written laws and tyranny of the majority, even within the context of democracy. Hitler was elected to power in Germany, and Socrates was sentenced to death by the free will of the people of democratic Greece. In today's China, it is not uncommon that the will and desire of officials easily become the "laws" of the land, thus continuing the rule of man in a disguise. Thus, legal reform in China does not lie in blindly writing and passing more legislations. What is needed is to establish rule of law (including the supremacy of law, judicial independence, judicial review, constitutional jurisprudence, and checks and balances among the executive branch, the legislature and the judiciary) and to set limit on the power of man within a constitutional framework. Only then could fundamental rights of individuals be guaranteed and not be arbitrarily deprived by anyone, including the legislature, and could rule of law prevail. In his presentation, Dr. Jiang discussed China's constitution within the current political framework and presented an approach to reform. He noted that there was a key issue missing under the current Chinese constitution. Under the literary text of China's constitution, the sub-national bodies, i.e., provincial and municipal congresses, seem to have almost unlimited power, hence there is nothing that prevents the local governments from being disengaged from the central government. However, this is not the case in reality and there is hardly any potential for its happening either. The consolidation of power and centralization of the government, in fact, is largely accomplished by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) system, which carries orders from the central committee of the CCP to the nerve end of any locality. Therefore, China has been in reality put together by this ultra-constitutional political reality. While admittedly this system functioned well during the past, it may well become a source of instability of the constitution, to say the least, and a threat to national unity, to say the worst. Relying on this type of framework to ensure national integrity could put the nation in danger if the party system were to fail. Therefore, the challenge is how to ensure the national unity within the constitutional framework, and one way to constitutional reform is to reflect the political reality and bring the party's authority within the confines of the constitution. The speakers' presentation triggered enthusiastic responses from the audience, and people commented on the definition of law and status of natural law, the relation between rule of law and democracy, and the way toward establishing a constitutional framework in China. Panel
4: U.S.-China Relations: Strategic Partners Or Competitors A group of six speakers, from both Chinese and American backgrounds, brought a wide spectrum of perspectives and unique insights to the issue of U.S.-China relations. The speakers included distinguished practitioners, government officials and scholars, including former U.S. ambassador to China and South Korea James Lilley, Professor Lei Guang from the San Diego State University, Professor Jacques deLisle from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Counselor Bu Xu from China's Mission to the United Nations, Mr. David Weller, Assistant General Counsel of the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and Professor Qingguo Jia from Peking University. Ambassador Lilley started this panel by addressing what he characterized as the growing conflict between globalization of the economy and the traditional notion of national sovereignty. He observed examples of such conflicts in Asia: the pressing nuclear crisis between India and Pakistan, the escalating hostility in the Korean Peninsula, and the lasting confrontation across the Taiwan Strait. Narrowing down to China, Ambassador Lilley then offered historical perspectives on strategic threats perceived by China over the past decades, pointing out the evolution from old geopolitical strategy to renewed needs to face off esoteric warfare such as terrorism. In offering his solution to a better U.S.-China relation, Ambassador Lilley first emphasized the importance of summitry between the two countries. Borrowing from his rich diplomatic experiences, Ambassador Lilley retraced the current broad-based U.S.-China relations to a series of meetings between Deng Xiaoping and George Bush starting from 1974, through the rest of the 70's and to the 80's. He noted that summitry kept the conversation going and helped the U.S.-China relation through its ups and downs. Next, Ambassador Lilley urged the two countries to continue building the relation on common grounds such as mutual interest in anti-terrorism cooperation, peace effort in South Asia and a range of international issues concerning AIDS, drug trafficking and the environment. Ambassador Lilley specifically praised China's recent gesture in turning five North Korean asylum-seekers to the South Korea. In closing, Ambassador Lilley expressed confidence in the new generation of leaders in both China and the U.S. Next, Professor Lei Guang took the stand and addressed issues related to the premise of the panel, "U.S. and China, strategic partners or competitors?" According to Professor Guang, given the multi-level and multi-faceted interaction between the two nations and their people, the perceived dichotomy between strategic partnership and competition can no longer be clearly defined. The bilateralization of international relations, he argued, like a marriage, makes power differentiation a less determinant factor, and even the weak country has leverage of all sorts against the powerful and the strong. One of the manifestations of this phenomenon in the U.S.-China relation is that, while China seems to need the U.S. more, China is too big for the U.S. to ignore or take lightly, and China has leverage over U.S. in many respects. Professor Guang used China's entry into the WTO as an example to illustrate the leveraging in this intertwined relation. Interestingly, the U.S. has been historically more engaged in Asia than in Europe, therefore, Professor Guang argued, whether to engage China or not is a silly question or no-question at all: the U.S. has always and will always engage China, and the relationship will always evolve and develop. Next, Professor Jacques deLisle offered an informative overview of major legal issues in three thorny areas or events in the U.S.-China relations: Hong Kong, Taiwan and the EP-3 incident. In reviewing the legal issues involved in these three topics and the historical evolution of the U.S-China interaction, Professor deLisle noted the persistent theme of conflict between China's principle of sovereignty and the U.S.'s concept of "legitimate" American extraterritorial interests and activities. In the case of Hong Kong, while the U.S. had an interest in the debate, that issue is largely dormant in the landscape of U.S.-China relations. Nevertheless, it illustrated China's emphasis on sovereignty integrity over legal technicality. China insisted that it never ceased to have sovereignty and only resumed exercising its sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, which turned to be the year when the old lease to the British expired. On Taiwan, Professor deLisle noted that the U.S. had acknowledged in two separate communiqués China's sovereignty over the island. The conflicts between the U.S. and China over the Taiwan issue are difficult to resolve because of moral stakes and geopolitical concerns. The EP-3 incident highlighted the direct confrontation of China' principle of sovereignty, with its underlying claim for absolute territorial wholeness and integrity, and U.S.'s claim of legitimacy of engaging in extra-territorial activities over what it perceives to be international water. However, legal doctrines did not and will not decide everything, and Professor deLisle noted that an undeniable factor that influenced the unfolding of the events and China's attitude surrounding the plane incident was the eerie parallel between the U.S. plane and colonial gunboat. The
fourth speaker was Counselor Bu Xu. While Counselor Xu's assessment
of the past thirty years in U.S.-China relation was positive
overall, he noted certain knots in the bilateral tie. Sharing
similar thoughts with some other speakers, Counselor Xu underscored
the importance of high-level dialogues based on mutual trust
and respect for each other's differences. Counselor Xu further
expressed concerns over changes in the U.S. domestic policy
and what had been their negative effects on the U.S.-China
relation. After the panel presentation, questions from the audience covered a broad range of issues including China's relationship with Russia, interest groups affecting the attitude of Capitol Hill toward China and decision-making in the White House that affects the foreign relations, profiles of current political leaders in Washington, and so on. The discussion continued well into the reception after the panel. Panel
5: Olympics and 9/11: Patriotism and Nationalism In this panel, Lei Guang, an Assistant Professor of Political science at the San Diego State University, reflected on Chinese nationalism in the context of China's relationship with the western world as well as non-western countries, as illustrated through the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. Professor Guang briefly traced the history behind the debate on nationalism, noting that Chinese nationalism is always characterized by its state-centered orientation, which was also intensely anti-west, aspiring at re-asserting China's power and glory after repeated national humiliations and defeat experienced in the modern history. However, does nationalism have any role in conflicts with non-western countries, such as India, and would Chinese nationalism assume a different face if the conflict is with a non-western country of similar long history and economic development level? What he found is that in the war, the conflicts were born out of a nationalistic rivalry between the two countries, and the armed conflict did challenge the core elements of China's nationalistic belief. There are three core elements that make up Chinese nationalism in the official and popular rhetoric during the Sino-Indian border war: (i) territorial integrity; (ii) "futuristic" vision of sovereign state; and (iii) legitimacy issue. Thus, Chinese nationalism is embodied through ideas, sentiments or rhetoric on territorial integrity, state sovereignty and international legitimacy. Hence, anti-western sentiment may not necessarily be a defining feature of Chinese nationalism, as it is widely assumed, nor is it necessarily focused on increasing state power or preoccupied with achieving historical glory. Heated discussion followed the presentation. Professor Qiang Li of Tsinghua University, provided an anecdotal story about how an Indian general's remarks invoked zealous nationalistic emotions and responses from Chinese leaders, confirming the role of nationalism in the decision-making body of the war, although he noted that the war could also be explained as a way for the high level leaders to solve internal troubles at the time. Some commentators noted that, to highlight the focus on state power, the term nationalism could be translated into GuoTu Zhuyi, instead of MinZu Zhuyi. A few discussions were devoted to defining nationalism based upon the discourse on nation-state in Western scholarship. Yu Wu, the moderator of the panel, concluded that in today's world, it is especially important to understand the role of nationalism in the context of growing globalization, when nation-states are increasingly becoming intertwined with international conglomerates. Panel
6: Reflections on 9/11: How Universal Are Liberal Democratic
Values? Speakers in this panel included Professor Yan Sun from City University of New York, the Graduate Center & Queens College, and Mr. Tongdong Bai from Boston University. They gave an overview of viewpoints from both universalism and cultural relativism, discussed the concept and content of liberal democracy, and tried to provide answers to the question of applicability of universal liberal democracy. Professor Sun began her presentation by discussing three major arguments for universalism, i.e., universal applicability of liberal democracy. First, the western liberal democracy is the sole standard of justice, and thus a universal measure can be and should be applied not only to the western civilization but also to non-western civilizations. Second, western countries, with a strong missionary mentality, felt that they are responsible for bringing the ultimate truth and absolute ideas of liberal democracy to the rest of the world. Third, some liberal democratic ideas do exist in other non-western civilizations, and therefore, ideas of liberal democracy are not incompatible with non-western civilizations. In other words, liberal democracy can be universally applied. As a response to these claims by universalism, Professor Sun went on to introduce some counter-arguments from the perspective of cultural relativism. Cultural relativists argue that there should be no value dominance. In rejecting the value dominance of universalists, cultural relativists counter with "Asian values." Asian values emphasize community over individual, duty over rights, output of the political process over input, and the ends of good governance over the means of democratic procedures. Democracy may lead to many not-so-good consequences. To cultural relativists, universalists' value dominance indicates epistemological hegemony. Cultural relativists also recognize and emphasize the existence of differences of some key cultural elements. For example, some cultures emphasize rights, and others emphasize duties, but they can perform similar functions of protecting people's interests. Finally, they argue that individuals cannot meaningfully exercise their civil and political liberties without the realization of certain collective good, such as the establishment of social and economic order, and therefore the legitimacy of collectivism. Thus, liberal democracy as carried out by the western world is not necessarily the best solution for all societies. In
his presentation, Mr. Bai discussed his idea of a political/liberal
democracy in which people can agree to disagree and which
is based on "overlapping consensus." He demonstrated
the problem associated with the metaphysical doctrines of
liberal democracy by asking two questions: are human beings
by nature self-interested or equal? Ought we to remain this
way even if human beings by nature are only self-interested
or equal? By introducing Rawls' political philosophy as well
as his own version of liberal democracy, which is "thinner"
than Rawls', Mr. Bai went on to provide answers to the question
of how it is possible to establish over time a stable and
just society of free and equal citizens with profoundly different
religious and moral doctrines. He elaborated on Rawls' political
concept of justice that is detached from any known metaphysical
foundation and introduced such concepts as "overlapping
consensus" and "public reason." He also compared
the difference between his own version of overlapping principles
of liberal democracy and that of Rawls. He concluded that
people in a non-liberal democracy (as well as in a liberal
democracy) can both endorse liberal democracy and cherish
their "non-liberal" ideas (such as patriotism, often
rhetorically denigrated as "nationalism," the supremacy/priority
of public interest, the importance of "hard" virtues,
the rule of the elite, etc., which are probably crucial to
any well-functioning and desirable societies and yet are under
ruthless attacks from the "liberal ideologies" in
China as well as in the US), and one's dislike of an ideology
of liberal democracy does not necessarily mean that one does
not want to have a liberal democracy. Pane
7: Overseas Chinese and Christianity In this panel, Dr. Fenggang Yang, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University, and Dr. Qianli Wu, a Portfolio Manager of Rydex Funds, discussed the history of Christianity in China and analyzed the rise of Christianity among the Chinese. Dr. Wu first briefly reviewed how and when Christianity was introduced to China. He traced back to the 6th century when Christianity was first brought to China by Syrians and Persians. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Christianity was known as Jing Jiao (Jing Religion or the Bright Religion). During the Yuan Dynasty, Christianity was re-introduced to China. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Catholic missionaries from Europe were active and successful, and some members of the royal families in both dynasties in fact became Catholics. There were both Catholics and Protestants in China from late Qing Dynasty to 1949. By 1949 there were 3 million Christians (Catholics and Protestants) in China, and the number increased rapidly by more than 10 times by the 1990s, well beyond the population growth rate in China. Dr. Wu noted that the Western missionaries were successful only when they showed flexibility and tried to blend Chinese cultural and traditions into their work in China. In light of the history and the recent dramatic increase of Christian population in the recent decades, Dr. Wu raised several issues (though he did not have enough time to do so at the retreat): (1) the need to re-evaluate the long-held all-negative views toward religions by many Chinese, including some of us, (2) the right government policy toward religions, particularly a monotheist one; and (3) the balance between a "foreign" religion's doctrine and the Chinese culture? Dr. Yang started his presentation by establishing the fact: today, while about 40% of Chinese in America have no religion, 32% of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans claim to be Christian (6% Catholic and 26% Protestant). It appears that Christianity or Protestantism has become the largest religion among Chinese Americans, whereas traditional Buddhism is only the second largest (20%). The first Chinese church in America was established in 1853 and there were 819 Chinese churches in the United States in 2000. While earlier missions to the Chinese mostly failed, Evangelism by the Chinese themselves since the 1960s has been thriving. Dr. Yang then moved to the sociological explanations of the rise of Christianity among the overseas Chinese. According to Dr. Yang, the reason does not lie in the "Rice Christian phenomenon" (chi jiao or eat religion), assimilation to dominant culture of America, or joining the church to satisfy ethnic needs. Instead, social contextual factors are more important, which include factors such as wars, revolutions and social turmoil in China, and migration experiences as uprooted and unrooted wanderers in America and elsewhere. He argued that these contextual factors freed Chinese immigrants from traditional religions/cultures. Meanwhile, Christian beliefs in the absolute truth, love and eternal life are attractive in the modern and postmodern times. The compatibility of Christianity with some Confucian values further contributes to the Chinese conversion to Christianity. He noted that those converted to Christianity still have a clear Chinese identity and therefore the idea that "One more Christian, one less Chinese" does not hold. Finally Dr. Yang also presented some facts of rising Christianity in mainland China. The presentation was followed by a short but intense debate on the underlying reasons for people who convert to Christians and the conflict or compatibility of Christianity and Confucianism. Panel
8: Images and Reflections: Comparative Literature and Movies
In this panel on issues of Chinese identity reflected in movies, Shuang Shen, an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University discussed the influence of contemporary Chinese movies on the shaping of modern Chinese identity, while Zhiwei Xiao, an associate professor of History at California State University, San Marcos, talked about movie censorship and reactions toward Hollywood movies. Professor Shen first introduced the idea of negotiation between the self and the collective society conveyed by many contemporary Chinese movies. She illustrated the construct of self in movies that have the following characteristics: (i) they are bilingual and take place in trans-cultural and/or trans-nationalistic settings; (ii) they use authentic foreign locations and characters portrayed by foreign actors and actresses and (iii) where the central characters are bi-cultural selves, they were made to carry the burden of the society by playing a significant role in shaping the Chinese identity. Professor Shen then showed clips from four movies to make her points. The first one, Heng Kong Chu Shi, tells the story of how Chinese nuclear scientist developed the first Chinese atomic bomb, and how the hero is an American educated, opera/classic music lover scientist who embodied professionalism and intellectual competition. My 1919 recounts Gu Weijun, a renowned Chinese diplomat, at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. There, armed with patriotic conscience and national dignity, he triumphed and withstood the pressure from other nations and refused to sign the peace treaty. Gua Sha tells a story of a successful Chinese engineer immigrant in the U.S. whose Chinese values and traditions become questioned by American norms. Gui Zi Lai Le provides a unique individual farmer's experience of the anti-Japanese war and the conflict between the invading soldiers and the peasants in all its complexity. Professor Xiao, a historian, reflected on the nationalist government's censorship on Hollywood movies during the 30s and 40s. China had always had very tight control over foreign movies, and movie censorship is thus not new. Before 1949, the nationalist government adopted policies prohibiting translation of foreign movies, limiting the quantity of foreign movies shown in any theater (30-40% of domestic movies), and denying any movies portraying negative images on Chinese people, culture, and values. The purpose of censorship of course was to protect domestic market and exercise control over the contents of movies shown in China. The policy was extremely effective, partly because China entered into alliances with other countries in the world so that China could ask the allied countries to destroy any movies within their jurisdiction that contained degrading imagines of Chinese people. Professor Xiao then talked about Chinese government's recent policies on censoring Hollywood movies and responses toward movies such as Seven Years in Tibet, Red Corner and Kun Dun. During the discussion session, some participants talked about possible changes to China's movie industry, effective strategies to compete with foreign movies, and the future of Chinese movies, especially now that China has become a member of WTO. Panel
9: Culture, Perception and Entrepreneurship For our last panel, Litao Zhao and Lu Zheng presented a study of Chinese engineers and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and Yan Li discussed American people's attitude toward China over the years. All speakers are Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University, and they provided a sociological perspective to our discussion on Chinese identity, culture and perceptions. First, Mr. Zhao and Mr. Zheng presented rich data on engineers in Silicon Valley, a group heavily dominated by Asian immigrants. Data of 1990 shows that Asian high-tech immigrants constitute 22% of all the Silicon Valley professionals. Among Asian professionals, 51% are from mainland China, 23% from India. 17% of Silicon Valley companies are established by Chinese, 7% by Indians. Among the three main high-tech immigrants groups, i.e., mainland China, Taiwan, and India, immigrants from mainland China have the highest average educational attainment, but Indian immigrants have the highest concentration of MBAs. This latter factor to a large degree determines the occupational distribution, as in both hardware and software industry, Indian immigrants have much higher proportion in managerial and executive positions, while mainland Chinese immigrants mostly concentrate in non-managerial technological fields. To change this typical "Indian manager + Chinese technician" scenario, Chinese immigrants need to further work on English, social skills and obtaining an MBA degree. In terms of entrepreneurship, survey shows that 60% of Indian immigrants are involved in startups, while 70% of Chinese mainland immigrants are NOT involved in startups. Mr. Zhao and Mr. Zheng concluded that the entrepreneur spirit is somewhat stronger among Indian immigrants than in Chinese immigrants. The survey shows that immigrant networks, in this case formal professional associations, are extremely important to the success of each immigrant group. Professional associations are basically ethnic-based, that is, Chinese immigrants do not join Indian associations, and vise versa. There are more associations created by Chinese immigrants, as there is more internal diversification among Chinese immigrants -- mainland immigrants and Taiwan immigrants tend to join different associations. Indian immigrants highly concentrate in one association (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and Chinese immigrants spread around in different associations. The survey also helps to counter the often-heard brain-drain argument, as the long-term positive effects of immigration on the country of origin are far greater than the short-term negative effects. The story of Taiwan in 1980s and 1990s has demonstrated the vital contribution from overseas immigrants to Taiwan's high-tech industry boom. India offers another more recent example, where its home software industry jumped to the top of the world through the link of its immigrants. To some degree, the Silicon Valley has become the training field of high-tech professionals for mainland China, Taiwan and India. High-tech immigrants, while seeking to root into the U.S., also contribute greatly and increasingly to their country/region of origin. Based on the successful experiences of Taiwan, we can expect to see growing positive effects of mainland Chinese immigrants on the development of high-tech industry within China. Then Ms. Li took the podium and spoke on an interesting but rarely studied issue: how has Americans' attitude toward China changed in the past decades and what are the individual and contextual/historical characteristics that lead to the difference in attitudes among the Americans? Ms. Li used data from the General Social Survey (GSS), an annual survey of the American public to answer this question. For 13 years between 1974 and 1994, the GSS asked each respondent how much they liked/disliked China (and some other countries). Results show an overall shift from a negative attitude during the 70s to a positive attitude during the 80s, and then to a neutral attitude in the early 90s. The time trend can also be detected through cohort effects. Americans who grew up after President Nixon's visit to China had a more positive attitude than those who grew up before that event. In general, younger cohorts have more tolerate attitudes toward China. With regard to individual characteristics, she finds that Americans living in the Midwest and the South hold more negative attitudes toward China than Northeasterners and Westerners; African-Americans have warmer feelings toward China than Whites; and older and more educated Americans have more positive attitude toward China. Political ideology has important effects on attitude toward China. The more liberal one is, the more he/she likes China. Likewise, people who think communism is a good social form have a much more positive attitude toward China than those who does not. The overall trend still holds after individual differences are teased out, which suggests that despite personal preferences, the American public's attitude toward China is mostly influenced by the larger political context, including U.S.'s China policy as well as major political events that happened in China. Ms. Li's presentation depicted a picture of interesting patterns. Apart from the academic value of Ms. Li's research, policy makers can use it as a guide to target specific groups when trying to orient and improve China's image among the American people. |