Menu
close
Kirstjen PollockHi All,
My student's grandfather signed the agreement for China's accession to the World Trade Organization, and he is coming to speak with my school next week. I'm thinking of holding an extra session one evening for anyone interested in learning the issues surrounding China and the WTO.
A quick search gave me these 2 articles, which seem to offer both sides of the argument:
https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/trade/what-happened-when-china-joined-wto
http://sl.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zt_1/WTO/
And this map is also helpful in my mind:
https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_maps_e.htm?country_selected=CHN&optionSelected=3
Any other nominations for resources?
Kirstjen PollockMy brother is a military intelligence contractor, so this conversation has come up before during our visits. He claims that China is a great threat (and therefore he apparently can't visit me here!), and I always wonder what the other side of the story might be.
While it is obvious that China is increasing its power in the region, my main question is why shouldn't they? It seems natural for a country to want to improve its presence in its neighborhood, miliarily, culturally, and economically, to protect its interests. In fact, is that not what the US is and has been doing this whole time? Why shouldn't China do the same? On many fronts, it is easy to see how China views the US as a threat and is therefore fighting back, though Philip Saunders rightly notes the shift from a reactive to proactive approach.
The AIDDATA displays how China has increased its cultural hegemony, but there is the note that the US still maintains a stronger language and cultural presence in South Central Asia. According to the Rand institute, though China is improving its military in many ways (especially technological ones), the US still has an advantage in nuclear warheads. The US Department of Defense report even identifies that Beijing sees the US as a threat that is "increasingly determined to contain the PRC." Have we considered that maybe the US IS a threat?
I'm not actually trying to defend China's actions here, just trying to figure out what the other side of this argument looks like.
Kirstjen PollockHi Brendon,
We use Ascension as a lens into middle class Chinese lives and work culture, also noting the biases in that it is a piece of art. Our Ascension discussion uses the visible thinking framework "See Think Me We" in an attempt to help students connect. http://www.pz.harvard.edu/resources/see-think-me-we
My unit is a grassroots history unit about gathering multiple perspectives, so we then compare the perspectives in the documentary to the voices in few other story choices from around China, and then to interviews that my students have conducted with their own family members.
I like the idea of comparing Chinese work culture to American work culture, but I would recommend adding some sources that better show the "9-9-6" work culture of the services sector. I would also include some data about the Chinese economy. Specific to Ascension, I like comparing labor force by industry sector as in these 2 charts, to show that China needs to move to a service economy as it works to escape the middle income trap.
Kirstjen PollockHi Elizabeth,
You're right that this is a great introduction to help people understand China's rise to economic power. Your thoughts have made me reconsider my lesson plans for upcoming classes and I am definitely going to include this video as a review, before showing a documentary called "Ascension," which goes into further (somewhat abstract, somewhat personal) detail about it on a micro scale. I really appreciate your comments!
Kirstjen PollockHi Everyone,
Every year I visit the UN's World Economic Situation and Prospects report to explore how China fits in with the rest of the world. My students are always surprised to see that China is listed as a developing country, and then we look at stories from rural Chinese citizens to explain how and where China is developing. But every year during the introductory lesson, I struggle to find the right data for the students to work with to figure out WHY China is listed as a developing country. Gini coefficient is the easiest answer, but in recent years, China and the USA share similar numbers, so I can't point to that as the cut and dry response.
Has anyone looked into this for 2023, and do you have any great resources to pass my way? I would love some help!
Kirstjen PollockI'm wondering if environmentalism is a major focus of the curriculum at your schools? My school (based in Hong Kong) has taken a sustainability pledge, and our students are inundated with information and opportunities to take action to improve the environment, from working in the (HK) school garden and doing beach clean ups in HK, to implementing changes on my (Hangzhou) campus in terms of daily consumption. All of my students are currently taking a class in which they weigh the benefits of EVs in terms of reduced carbon emissions vs the hidden/ignored environmental costs associated with battery production and disposal (Volt Rush is a good book to peruse on the topic). With all of these measures, however, the students seem mostly have learned how to pay lip service to environmentalism but are also somewhat inured to the negative effects of pollution.
The most visible concern to people in China is air pollution. I'm happy today because the air quality was really good yesterday afternoon, and the AQI forecast for today looks pretty good as well. Over the weekend, however, I couldn't run outside and I redirected my students' plans for a Sunday afternoon football game (30 mins max, and avoid playing with high intensity!).
Though most adults here are concerned about air quality and pollution, available data is not at all what the article "People Power" seems to suggest. I can only access a reliable AQI via VPN, and my AQI does not report numbers as high as one of my colleague's, who accesses hers off campus by a different VPN. When I report high numbers to my children's sports coaches, I am often met with surprise. That being said, Hangzhou has taken many initiatives to improve emissions, such as implementing electric buses, a share bike system (which has created another level of pollution -- who knew bike pollution was a thing?), and an ever-expanding metro system. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/new-green-chapter-chinas-fabled-lakeside-city
Just as my students know how to pay lip service to environmentalism, it's hard to know how much action is truly being taken by governments on environmental issues, vs how much is being said, and vs how much needs to be taken.
Kirstjen PollockBrendon, you are right that many students are motivated to study abroad. It's also because of the pressures of the one-child policy that many Chinese kids seek education abroad.
While there are a number of IB schools in China, the truth behind each school is often difficult to ascertain. Increasingly, they are schools that offer IB to international passport holders (often Chinese children who were born abroad to avoid the one-child policy) but Chinese curriculum to citizens. Some IB schools only carry a portion of the IB, and other chain schools are IB certified in one location but not in the many other locations around China. Nonetheless, these schools are attractive to families seeking an alternative to Chinese national curriculum -- whether due to citizenship issues, Gaokao pressures, a child who doesn't fit well into a classroom of 48 peers, or other reasons.
Education carries huge pressure in China. To that end a new law was passed in 2021 to limit tutoring with the aim to decrease the pressure on individual families to provide expensive education to children.
Kirstjen PollockHey Courtney,
I believe China needs to raise its retirement age for the same reason the US age is increasing to 67: a shrinking working-age population. There is pushback because the government retirement has been considered good enough to support one into old age, and with cuts to those benefits and increases in age, people feel betrayed.
Your comment: It also made me consider why we have a retirement age of 65+ here in the US. Is this purely a result of our social security system that really relies on people to remain working and paying into it? Is it because it's been engrained in American culture to live to work?
-- I think we are seeing changes in China on both sides of your question -- the social security system in China relies on people working and paying into it, and Chinese culture is in the middle of a shift towards spending more time working. Many young, educated urban residents live to work, creating the "9-9-6" work culture (9am-9pm, 6 days a week), while those who work more labor-intensive jobs look forward to early retirement.
Here's an article to read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/business/wuhan-china-protests.html
Kirstjen PollockCourtney, I agree, it's super interesting to watch unfold. There's a fake Paris and a fake Venice near Hangzhou that I visited once with friends -- very funny. Though most of the ghost towns/potemkin villages are on the outskirts of cities, there's a building near my house that hasn't been built in the 13 years I've lived here and it always makes me laugh/wonder.
From what I have read, there hasn't been a massive government response yet. There have been some lawsuits, but I believe that the central government is leaving it up to local governments to solve the problem. The gov't/gov't officials may also have money tied up in the bubble and are therefore not interested in fixing it. "The housing sector brings critical fiscal revenues to local government and gross domestic product growth to Beijing" (https://www.ft.com/content/b9f17616-3654-4a04-a778-e7fa66d8a898)
Also this is interesting: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/10/chinese-communist-party-property-bubble-real-estate/
But I've mostly read the more humanistic stories on Sixth Tone, which describe the despair of individuals whose homes have not yet been built.
Kirstjen PollockHi Richard,
Education is a huge topic in China. When I think about China exporting students, many things come to mind.
First is that right after the Cultural Revolution, when economic reform became a key focus, many students were sent abroad partly in effort to bring global knowledge, expertise, and practices into China. I have a few colleagues who were in that first wave of international students from China. To this day, though many Chinese students study abroad, most of them return to their home regions, and the country is able to leverage their knowledge to its own benefit.
Secondly, I used to teach students who were aiming to study abroad. There are many training schools designed to serve that specific purpose. This is partly due to the one-child policy; if a family has more than 1 child, the second child cannot attend Chinese public schools or qualify for Chinese universities, and so they must pursue alternative routes to education. There was even a little bit of a trap in some US universities, where students would be accepted to a provisional language program and only allowed to matriculate into the general university after qualifying in English. Some students got stuck in the language program instead of going on to select majors.
Note that Covid is drawing a new landscape in terms of Chinese students abroad, and we are likely to see continued change with the elimination of the one-child policy. In fact, many schools that catered to these second children have already closed or are shifting their target market due to changes that have already occurred. However, there remains a strong desire for Chinese students, whether first children or second children, to go abroad to learn and to pick up foreign languages along the way.
Kirstjen PollockToday's lecture brought up 3 points for me immediately:
1. Recent moves to increase the working population: China’s retirement age — changing by 2055 ; inheritance laws in Sichuan . The Sichuan case has really upset my family's helper, who feels like men have complete freedom now to have as many children as they like, outside of wedlock. However, as an economic move to increase the working population, it bears merit.
2. The mention of China’s ghost towns. All around, there are so many unfinished apartment buildings, and they definitely have created a housing bubble. There have been many stories recently about people living in unfinished homes, but I haven't seen the government response yet. Has anyone seen it?
3. China’s trading partners — can anyone help me figure this graphic out? I don't quite understand who is importing into China and where China's exports are going. I would like to see some stats on this and would appreciate a good source.
Kirstjen PollockThank you!
Kirstjen PollockHi Brendan,
American Factory came to mind for me as well! The idea that China is now directly investing in foreign countries (Belt & Road, too) when only 45 years ago it started incentivizing incoming FDI holds a lot of power for Chinese citizens. You said, " it hinges on the promise that this generation will have a better life than their parents, and their children will have a better situation than themselves." I actually discovered that for myself about 13 years ago in conversation with a Chinese colleague, who said something to the effect that the average citizen has no desire to question/challenge/criticize the government when things are so much better for each passing generation. There is a lot of talk about how GDP can continue to accelerate, and when you look at rural regions as you did, it's hard to imagine how they will become developed amidst shrinking populations. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. They really struck a chord with me.
Kirstjen PollockHi Crystal, I just want to verify that 30 posts are required for this course. In reading the Course Requirements, it looked like some of the information was copied from a previous course. Thanks for clarifying.
Kirstjen PollockThis week, I see a lot of information from Chinese-Australians.
The opinions I encountered in these articles were largely pro-China, with some expressing confusion about any anti-Chinese sentiments, whether overt racism or otherwise. It was interesting to read comments such as the suggestion that “those who have left authoritarian regimes to settle in a stable democracy do not always regard democracy as the only option” (The Interpreter) and to hear that one person was requested to take what amounted to a loyalty oath (SBS Dateline). It makes me wonder what’s wrong with something other than democracy, and if there might be a type of government not yet established that is superior to the types we have now. I was also struck by the implied questioning of the validity of Chinese-Australian political activism based on the fact that Chinese-Australians get news from censored sources (The Interpreter). I wonder how common this line of thinking truly is in Australia
Because these are news articles, I also noticed a certain dramatic flair, such as the music (SBS Dateline) and the government officials stalking the journalist (CNN). It’s hard for me to take such things seriously when there’s a clear reason for bias. Something new for me was the “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” (SBS Dateline) — a name I hadn’t heard, but a concept that made sense. Another thing that resonated was the excuse that foreign countries have committed crimes in the past, so developing countries should be given equal opportunity (SBS Dateline). I have encountered this line of thinking in regards to the environment, but never before in regards to human rights.
As an expat, I did connect with some of the things mentioned. For instance, since 2016, I have noticed a rise in nationalism both in the USA and in China. Since Covid, I have noticed and experienced strong anti-foreign sentiments and rhetoric in both countries as well. For example, in China, the rhetoric for much of 2020-2022 was that Covid only existed overseas, so people avoided being near me since I obviously come from overseas. Foreign imports were also increasingly difficult to obtain for a while, and packages from my parents were impossible to receive, whereas previously these things were no problem.
A further personal anecdote that got me wondering: my school previously had an Australian deputy director who did not return after Covid in 2020, citing his government’s warnings against traveling to China. At that time, the US State Department did have some government warnings against heading to China, and over the next two years (especially during the Shanghai lockdown), the warnings became stronger. However, my family still felt comfortable returning. As I highly respect this individual and his decisions, I wonder if the Australian rhetoric was that much stronger against China to drive away this individual.
I’m left with these ponderings: with global interactions changing daily, especially as Covid has now ended China, I wonder if we will see a return to globalization. I wonder how identities, especially nationalism vs globalization, will play out in the next few years. Will they will balance together, or play off of each other? And how will they each earn places in the hearts and minds of people around the world?
