Left Behind, China Hopes for New Life

The long-awaited decision of the U.S. Congress, expected next week, on permanent normal trade status for China will affect many people in both countries.

In the United States, for example, it will indicate whether farmers will soon have a huge new market for their produce, or whether American telecommunication companies will be able to begin working with China in the coming global marriage of computers and mobile communication networks. In China, of course, Congress’ vote will have significant consequences. Approval would put new wind in the sails of those who have been trying to reach out to the United States. However, a negative decision in the House, where the vote is predicted to be close, would be taken as a signal that those in China who believe that America is fair-minded (those, in effect, who represent the new, modern face of this developing nation) have been fools.

One of the people watching this historic vote carefully, and who is as good a representative as there is of the new face of China, is Wang Shenghong. Last year, he became the president of Fudan University, one of China’s best. The best by itself, though, isn’t good enough when you are so far behind the rest of the world in higher education for the masses. Fudan is but one of barely 100 comprehensive universities. Despite the government’s announced commitment to higher education for all, barely 10% of 18- to 21-year-olds go to college in this nation of 1.3 billion. For the new thinkers like Wang, the current situation of higher ed looks too much like the familiar old face of the left-behind China.

And for Wang, there is no hope for China at all if it reverts back to the traditional and starts to turn inward, away from the West. In most areas concerned with educational issues, he said, speaking with quiet passion in his Shanghai office last month: “Interaction and globalization is in our best interests, for both parties. Globalization covers all issues of concern for all human beings, such as deterioration of the environment, population growth and scarce resources. All this will require world cooperation. All have to tackle these issues.”

Like any true educator, Wang believes in a world improved by education and ruled by reason: “Cooperation on the part of educational communities worldwide is essential. Global interaction in all areas is something that’s inevitable. We do understand that there are serious political differences between China and America, but the cooperation of universities must remain above politics.”

World politics, after all, can be unreasonable. If the House rejects the current bill designed to cement more open trade relations with China, Wang doesn’t even want to reflect on the political consequences at home. And if Beijing itself were to opt for some kind of new-age Maoism, where would that leave Wang’s larger, cosmopolitan vision of higher education in China? Would China be able to accept the risky openness of the free exchange of ideas in the Internet age?

Wang would probably accept that no Chinese system, in his lifetime at least, is likely meet American standards for openness. This engineer and physicist, however, is one of those who understands the relentless, expansionist logic of the new technology and accepts that trying to curb the Internet is ultimately futile. “And I do think in a lot of areas we need openness and transparency,” Wang said, adding, pointedly and proudly, that at Fudan “there isn’t a single faculty member here who has adopted a negative attitude toward the Internet.”

Rapidly, Wang is building alliances with educators wherever he can find them, including in Southern California. His university is a member of the Assn. of Pacific Rim Universities, founded three years ago by USC, UCLA, UC Berkeley and Cal Tech. Next year in Shanghai, Wang will host the organization’s annual meeting--the first Chinese educator to have the honor. Says Steve Sample, president of USC, where APRU was born and where it today has its administrative headquarters: “I have no doubt that outstanding educators like Wang are exactly what China needs--and the world needs too.”

Suppose, though, that next week the U.S. turns its back on China, rejecting the historic trade bill out of suspicion and misunderstanding or election-year politics. What chance do people like Wang really have? And in what direction may China turn? Every day on the way to work, Fudan’s president walks past a hulking statue of Mao on campus that serves to remind everyone of where China came from and where it could return.

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Times contributing editor Tom Plate recently returned from a reporting trip to China. The full text of the Wang interview is available at: https://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu.