1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,417 --the Premier's motorcade leaving. 2 00:00:01,417 --> 00:00:05,520 So LCS is happy to present to Professor Richard Suttmeier 3 00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:07,547 from the University of Oregon, who will be here 4 00:00:07,547 --> 00:00:09,630 to give a brief commentary on the Premier's speech 5 00:00:09,630 --> 00:00:11,370 just special for those of you in this room 6 00:00:11,370 --> 00:00:13,370 and be able to answer any questions you may have 7 00:00:13,370 --> 00:00:15,360 about China, Chinese technology-- 8 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:18,210 which he's an expert on, China and Chinese technology. 9 00:00:18,210 --> 00:00:20,364 Professor Suttmeier. 10 00:00:20,364 --> 00:00:22,804 [APPLAUSE] 11 00:00:22,804 --> 00:00:32,980 12 00:00:32,980 --> 00:00:33,480 Thank you. 13 00:00:33,480 --> 00:00:34,147 Is this working? 14 00:00:34,147 --> 00:00:38,037 15 00:00:38,037 --> 00:00:39,620 I thought I would just make one or two 16 00:00:39,620 --> 00:00:44,327 comments about my reaction to Premier Zhu's speech. 17 00:00:44,327 --> 00:00:46,910 I think it was very interesting that he started with the trade 18 00:00:46,910 --> 00:00:47,420 deficit-- 19 00:00:47,420 --> 00:00:51,170 and, clearly, that he's picked up, 20 00:00:51,170 --> 00:00:54,170 I think, some signals in the last few days 21 00:00:54,170 --> 00:00:58,580 about the various kinds of US domestic politics 22 00:00:58,580 --> 00:01:04,730 that are going to be playing on the WTO decision. 23 00:01:04,730 --> 00:01:08,160 What I think is also interesting, 24 00:01:08,160 --> 00:01:11,330 though, is the way in which he kind of turned 25 00:01:11,330 --> 00:01:16,100 that question about the trade deficit really into a larger 26 00:01:16,100 --> 00:01:20,000 set of issues about China's development strategy 27 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:25,230 and the importance of the US-China relationship in that. 28 00:01:25,230 --> 00:01:28,250 Clearly, a good part of that strategy 29 00:01:28,250 --> 00:01:33,500 is one of following a kind of export-led growth. 30 00:01:33,500 --> 00:01:36,260 But, at the same time, it's clear-- and, again, 31 00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:40,700 as the question from the young student from Tsinghua pointed 32 00:01:40,700 --> 00:01:41,690 out-- 33 00:01:41,690 --> 00:01:46,280 China really is making, is redoubling its efforts, 34 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:50,760 I think, to build up its science and technology. 35 00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:57,110 And so the components of that are a very significant 36 00:01:57,110 --> 00:02:01,580 redoubling of effort that Premier Zhu alluded to 37 00:02:01,580 --> 00:02:07,310 in the last two or three years, where this leadership-- and I 38 00:02:07,310 --> 00:02:08,419 would emphasize that. 39 00:02:08,419 --> 00:02:14,300 I think his team, more so than any other leaders 40 00:02:14,300 --> 00:02:20,390 that China has had this century, has a keen awareness of just 41 00:02:20,390 --> 00:02:22,460 how important these issues are. 42 00:02:22,460 --> 00:02:24,230 China-- the last thing China wants 43 00:02:24,230 --> 00:02:28,460 as it looks towards the 21st century, I think, 44 00:02:28,460 --> 00:02:33,670 is to continue to be an exporter of low value-added products. 45 00:02:33,670 --> 00:02:36,260 I think its objectives, its targets, 46 00:02:36,260 --> 00:02:42,110 are really much more up there in more science-based 47 00:02:42,110 --> 00:02:44,310 manufacturing and services. 48 00:02:44,310 --> 00:02:47,310 And, so, if one looks-- 49 00:02:47,310 --> 00:02:50,120 and that's what I think that the student was alluding to-- 50 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:54,770 at a whole series of initiatives in the last two or three years 51 00:02:54,770 --> 00:02:59,270 to attack these fundamental problems that 52 00:02:59,270 --> 00:03:03,430 keep China from moving in that direction in the 21st century-- 53 00:03:03,430 --> 00:03:06,650 A friend at the Chinese Academy of Sciences 54 00:03:06,650 --> 00:03:10,160 put it to me this way last November. 55 00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:14,900 He said, when we look around at the way the world is changing, 56 00:03:14,900 --> 00:03:17,150 and especially in the capitalist world, 57 00:03:17,150 --> 00:03:20,630 we see that the train is leaving the station-- 58 00:03:20,630 --> 00:03:24,620 that is, this new world, whatever we want to call it-- 59 00:03:24,620 --> 00:03:27,950 the knowledge economy, the new Industrial Revolution. 60 00:03:27,950 --> 00:03:30,210 It's what many of you, of course, 61 00:03:30,210 --> 00:03:34,250 are in the process of creating. 62 00:03:34,250 --> 00:03:38,180 They see that, I think, as the train about to leave. 63 00:03:38,180 --> 00:03:40,800 They missed the first Industrial Revolution. 64 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:43,100 They don't want to miss the second. 65 00:03:43,100 --> 00:03:45,440 And so the question becomes, what 66 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:49,130 are the obstacles for China to be on that train? 67 00:03:49,130 --> 00:03:53,240 I think Zhu Rongji has a very, very keen sense of that going 68 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:55,700 back to his experience in the '80s, 69 00:03:55,700 --> 00:03:58,830 when, even before he became mayor of Shanghai, 70 00:03:58,830 --> 00:04:02,870 he was a key person looking at how China can begin 71 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:05,682 to take advantage of technologies 72 00:04:05,682 --> 00:04:07,640 that are available on the international market. 73 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:11,180 At the same time, while that was going on, 74 00:04:11,180 --> 00:04:14,510 there has been, in course, a very significant reform 75 00:04:14,510 --> 00:04:17,420 in Chinese science and technology and education. 76 00:04:17,420 --> 00:04:20,149 And what I think that he is hoping to see 77 00:04:20,149 --> 00:04:25,160 is that those two things come together in the near future. 78 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:26,750 I could go on and on and all that, 79 00:04:26,750 --> 00:04:30,110 but rather than ask you to sing "Happy Birthday" again-- 80 00:04:30,110 --> 00:04:30,980 [LAUGHTER] 81 00:04:30,980 --> 00:04:35,390 --I would be happy to reflect any questions 82 00:04:35,390 --> 00:04:36,800 that you have or comments. 83 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,305 And we could have more of a discussion. 84 00:04:39,305 --> 00:04:40,763 We have mikes out here, so if you'd 85 00:04:40,763 --> 00:04:42,695 like to step up to the mike. 86 00:04:42,695 --> 00:04:44,627 We have microphones right here. 87 00:04:44,627 --> 00:04:47,530 88 00:04:47,530 --> 00:04:49,670 Can I ask you a quick question? 89 00:04:49,670 --> 00:04:51,940 It appeared he had spoke without notes 90 00:04:51,940 --> 00:04:53,530 and without teleprompters. 91 00:04:53,530 --> 00:04:54,850 Is that correct? 92 00:04:54,850 --> 00:04:57,190 I think he did, yeah. 93 00:04:57,190 --> 00:04:59,590 It was a very detailed and impressive talk 94 00:04:59,590 --> 00:05:01,150 to be done that way. 95 00:05:01,150 --> 00:05:02,980 That's one-- He's, I think, noted 96 00:05:02,980 --> 00:05:07,120 for his mastery of these kinds of details. 97 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:12,190 And, again, as I look at it, I think that what you're seeing 98 00:05:12,190 --> 00:05:16,900 with him-- but you can look just at the next level down in terms 99 00:05:16,900 --> 00:05:18,610 of age and positions-- 100 00:05:18,610 --> 00:05:22,840 is an incredibly competent, or increasingly competent, 101 00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:27,130 group of national leaders, many of whom, in fact, do 102 00:05:27,130 --> 00:05:29,140 have engineering degrees. 103 00:05:29,140 --> 00:05:33,670 This has become a very technocratic leadership now. 104 00:05:33,670 --> 00:05:36,970 And, assuming that they don't get 105 00:05:36,970 --> 00:05:40,750 sidetracked by one thing or another along the way, 106 00:05:40,750 --> 00:05:44,770 I think you're going to find this putting 107 00:05:44,770 --> 00:05:48,100 the full powers of the state behind a kind 108 00:05:48,100 --> 00:05:51,730 of high technology future, if they can do it. 109 00:05:51,730 --> 00:05:56,050 The minister made a reference to the prohibition on exportation 110 00:05:56,050 --> 00:05:59,050 from the US, importation to China, of supercomputers. 111 00:05:59,050 --> 00:06:02,380 Could you please elaborate on that a bit? 112 00:06:02,380 --> 00:06:06,640 Well, export controls have been an irritant 113 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:13,510 in US-China relations since 1978. 114 00:06:13,510 --> 00:06:19,420 And the-- I won't try to go into all of that, 115 00:06:19,420 --> 00:06:22,000 but I think one of the things that that 116 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,630 tells you is that, since the normalization of relations, 117 00:06:25,630 --> 00:06:30,490 China has had a very aggressive search for technology 118 00:06:30,490 --> 00:06:31,450 and for science. 119 00:06:31,450 --> 00:06:34,180 I mean, they've sent hundreds of thousands of students 120 00:06:34,180 --> 00:06:35,950 abroad to learn science. 121 00:06:35,950 --> 00:06:38,740 122 00:06:38,740 --> 00:06:42,460 In recent years, and of course within the last year, 123 00:06:42,460 --> 00:06:46,270 there has been these very, very high-profile export control 124 00:06:46,270 --> 00:06:49,240 cases that are, in some ways, quite complicated, 125 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:55,980 one of which, of course, is the Hughes Loral satellite exports. 126 00:06:55,980 --> 00:06:58,600 There have been machine tool questions, advanced machine 127 00:06:58,600 --> 00:06:59,650 tool questions. 128 00:06:59,650 --> 00:07:04,310 And then there have been these supercomputer issues. 129 00:07:04,310 --> 00:07:07,630 And I think one in particular has gotten people's attention. 130 00:07:07,630 --> 00:07:12,970 And that was the export of a system 131 00:07:12,970 --> 00:07:15,850 to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which 132 00:07:15,850 --> 00:07:17,890 was supposedly-- 133 00:07:17,890 --> 00:07:19,990 one of the things that has happened over the years 134 00:07:19,990 --> 00:07:23,170 is that, in order to make this thing work better, 135 00:07:23,170 --> 00:07:28,060 is that the Chinese have agreed to having end users identified 136 00:07:28,060 --> 00:07:29,470 and monitored in some sense. 137 00:07:29,470 --> 00:07:32,200 But the US is not in a position-- 138 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,780 it doesn't have the resources to fully monitor those things. 139 00:07:35,780 --> 00:07:39,610 So in this case, there was an export that was made. 140 00:07:39,610 --> 00:07:42,640 It went to an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 141 00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:45,400 for research purposes, allegedly. 142 00:07:45,400 --> 00:07:50,140 And, then, allegedly, this institute 143 00:07:50,140 --> 00:07:52,780 was also accessible to the military. 144 00:07:52,780 --> 00:07:58,030 And that was never, supposedly, included in the original export 145 00:07:58,030 --> 00:07:59,455 control licensing process. 146 00:07:59,455 --> 00:08:02,200 147 00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:04,430 Yeah. 148 00:08:04,430 --> 00:08:09,260 Can you comment on the Sloan School 149 00:08:09,260 --> 00:08:15,320 MIT and also the Tsinghua and the party elites-- 150 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:18,590 the problems of the technical managers 151 00:08:18,590 --> 00:08:21,170 are going to face between the-- 152 00:08:21,170 --> 00:08:24,650 shall we say, the relationship between the Communist Party, 153 00:08:24,650 --> 00:08:30,440 the party elite, and the technocratic elite as they 154 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:33,110 try to move into the next century, some of the problems 155 00:08:33,110 --> 00:08:35,390 they might face? 156 00:08:35,390 --> 00:08:41,120 Well, some of the analyses that have been done on the current 157 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:44,090 leadership-- if you look at the Chinese Central Committee, 158 00:08:44,090 --> 00:08:45,150 for instance-- 159 00:08:45,150 --> 00:08:50,270 have concluded that it is already largely technocratic. 160 00:08:50,270 --> 00:08:56,272 And I think that that has some good news and some bad news. 161 00:08:56,272 --> 00:08:57,980 The good news, I think, is that it really 162 00:08:57,980 --> 00:09:03,420 will move China towards paying very, very serious attention 163 00:09:03,420 --> 00:09:06,200 on how it gets its science and technology in order. 164 00:09:06,200 --> 00:09:08,720 The bad news is that one might lose 165 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:14,210 a little bit of this kind of political flexibility 166 00:09:14,210 --> 00:09:15,050 that may-- 167 00:09:15,050 --> 00:09:17,240 that I'm sure is going to be necessary 168 00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:22,250 as China faces political changes in the near future. 169 00:09:22,250 --> 00:09:26,780 That said, if I understood your question, 170 00:09:26,780 --> 00:09:30,530 I think that Prime Minister Zhu is also 171 00:09:30,530 --> 00:09:33,770 alluding to this very, very serious problem 172 00:09:33,770 --> 00:09:38,720 of high-quality manpower and managerial manpower. 173 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:41,600 174 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:45,360 In a way, when one looks at professional manpower in China, 175 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:48,830 it's a curious kind of situation. 176 00:09:48,830 --> 00:09:52,610 You have very, very large numbers of people, 177 00:09:52,610 --> 00:09:55,190 both in terms of management and in terms 178 00:09:55,190 --> 00:10:00,110 of research and development, who have advanced degrees and who 179 00:10:00,110 --> 00:10:01,070 are-- 180 00:10:01,070 --> 00:10:02,930 if you look in absolute terms, it's 181 00:10:02,930 --> 00:10:05,010 a very large number of people. 182 00:10:05,010 --> 00:10:07,040 But, in fact, when you start looking 183 00:10:07,040 --> 00:10:11,100 at age composition, experience, quality of training, 184 00:10:11,100 --> 00:10:13,970 and so forth, and so on, then, indeed, China 185 00:10:13,970 --> 00:10:17,920 begins to look like it has a very, very severe scarcity 186 00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:20,690 of high-level manpower. 187 00:10:20,690 --> 00:10:23,470 And I think that's what he was alluding to. 188 00:10:23,470 --> 00:10:28,400 Now, he has been, or had been, the dean or honorary dean 189 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:31,530 of Tsinghua's school of management, 190 00:10:31,530 --> 00:10:34,760 which was one of the earliest schools of management. 191 00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:36,740 There are now a lot more. 192 00:10:36,740 --> 00:10:38,855 But the demand is very, very large. 193 00:10:38,855 --> 00:10:41,510 194 00:10:41,510 --> 00:10:42,010 Please. 195 00:10:42,010 --> 00:10:45,710 Yeah, we have a number of points of conflict with China 196 00:10:45,710 --> 00:10:49,235 now over Formosa and Kosovo and the budget deficit 197 00:10:49,235 --> 00:10:51,080 and espionage. 198 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:54,200 What are the prospects now for escalation 199 00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:57,500 of this conflict between the United States and China? 200 00:10:57,500 --> 00:10:59,887 In other words, what's the worst possible scenario 201 00:10:59,887 --> 00:11:00,845 that you might foresee? 202 00:11:00,845 --> 00:11:05,520 203 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:08,490 The worst scenario I would see is the potential 204 00:11:08,490 --> 00:11:14,110 for conflict or near conflict developing perhaps over Taiwan. 205 00:11:14,110 --> 00:11:17,280 206 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:21,570 But I would hope it wouldn't come to that. 207 00:11:21,570 --> 00:11:24,660 I think a more likely bad scenario 208 00:11:24,660 --> 00:11:31,530 would be that the two sides will stop talking intimately 209 00:11:31,530 --> 00:11:33,150 to one another. 210 00:11:33,150 --> 00:11:36,060 China will begin to look to Europe, 211 00:11:36,060 --> 00:11:38,730 in particular, for some things that it now 212 00:11:38,730 --> 00:11:41,250 looks to the United States for. 213 00:11:41,250 --> 00:11:42,900 That's one of the ironies. 214 00:11:42,900 --> 00:11:45,870 And I think if Zhu Rongji had had a lot more time 215 00:11:45,870 --> 00:11:48,330 to talk about export controls, that would have been one 216 00:11:48,330 --> 00:11:49,290 of the things he would have said, 217 00:11:49,290 --> 00:11:50,873 is if you don't want to sell it to us, 218 00:11:50,873 --> 00:11:55,680 we'll buy it from somewhere else. 219 00:11:55,680 --> 00:11:59,490 So I think that the potential for the downward spiral 220 00:11:59,490 --> 00:12:03,030 to continue is there. 221 00:12:03,030 --> 00:12:07,800 Feelings in Congress, I think, at the moment, prompted 222 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:12,930 by the trade issue as well as the espionage allegations, 223 00:12:12,930 --> 00:12:14,580 run quite deep. 224 00:12:14,580 --> 00:12:18,570 And whether his visit on this occasion 225 00:12:18,570 --> 00:12:22,380 has helped to change that a little bit remains to be seen. 226 00:12:22,380 --> 00:12:26,400 But I would think that you could have 227 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:35,430 a loss of some important areas of cooperation. 228 00:12:35,430 --> 00:12:37,260 The Korean problem, for instance, 229 00:12:37,260 --> 00:12:41,490 is one where I think it's in our interest to maintain 230 00:12:41,490 --> 00:12:43,200 a very good dialogue. 231 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:47,340 It's in our interest that the whole problem with Taiwan 232 00:12:47,340 --> 00:12:51,690 is kept on a sort of steady-state balance, 233 00:12:51,690 --> 00:12:57,550 rather than letting it go into a downward spiral as well. 234 00:12:57,550 --> 00:13:01,170 235 00:13:01,170 --> 00:13:06,210 I think what will determine all these factors is largely 236 00:13:06,210 --> 00:13:10,650 the domestic politics of the two countries. 237 00:13:10,650 --> 00:13:16,790 And I think you can see in this country that China, 238 00:13:16,790 --> 00:13:17,970 for better or worse-- 239 00:13:17,970 --> 00:13:20,030 in my own view, probably worse-- 240 00:13:20,030 --> 00:13:25,880 has become a significant issue in US domestic politics 241 00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:28,100 and kind of a political football. 242 00:13:28,100 --> 00:13:30,530 And I don't think-- 243 00:13:30,530 --> 00:13:33,920 again, the worst case is that it may not 244 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,250 get any better until we have a new election 245 00:13:37,250 --> 00:13:41,600 and a new administration that then has to redefine 246 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,520 what our interests are. 247 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:47,060 The executive has to clarify how it deals with Congress, and so 248 00:13:47,060 --> 00:13:48,650 forth, and so on. 249 00:13:48,650 --> 00:13:50,270 And, to follow up, how badly hurt 250 00:13:50,270 --> 00:13:54,050 is the Premier by not getting a WTO agreement on this visit? 251 00:13:54,050 --> 00:13:56,540 Yeah, well, that's, I think, a question everyone is asking. 252 00:13:56,540 --> 00:14:03,470 And he may yet get something, if his conversation of yesterday 253 00:14:03,470 --> 00:14:04,730 is any indication. 254 00:14:04,730 --> 00:14:07,340 255 00:14:07,340 --> 00:14:10,370 I think it will be a disappointment. 256 00:14:10,370 --> 00:14:16,130 He faces a very tough challenge when he gets back. 257 00:14:16,130 --> 00:14:21,020 There are still lots of people in the leadership who are not 258 00:14:21,020 --> 00:14:24,050 as enthusiastic, I think, about relations with the US 259 00:14:24,050 --> 00:14:26,240 as perhaps he is. 260 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:29,120 In addition, he just faces enormous challenges. 261 00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:31,730 The problems of governing China I think 262 00:14:31,730 --> 00:14:37,390 are often greatly underestimated in the United States 263 00:14:37,390 --> 00:14:40,430 in all kinds of ways, the most important of which, I think, 264 00:14:40,430 --> 00:14:44,060 is this underlying question about the state-owned 265 00:14:44,060 --> 00:14:49,580 enterprises, which occupy still 70% of the industrial economy, 266 00:14:49,580 --> 00:14:52,770 and all of the employment that that represents. 267 00:14:52,770 --> 00:14:57,590 So when he goes out and sort of makes some gestures, 268 00:14:57,590 --> 00:14:59,690 as he has done, I think, in some concessions 269 00:14:59,690 --> 00:15:03,350 on WTO, that's a fairly costly thing 270 00:15:03,350 --> 00:15:06,980 to do, potentially, in terms of his own domestic politics, 271 00:15:06,980 --> 00:15:11,150 because it is precisely those domestic state-owned 272 00:15:11,150 --> 00:15:14,000 enterprises which will begin to feel 273 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:19,940 the pressure from a liberalized WTO world or WTO membership. 274 00:15:19,940 --> 00:15:22,490 Thank you. 275 00:15:22,490 --> 00:15:25,040 I want to follow up on this WTO issue, 276 00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:26,828 because it seems, at least to someone 277 00:15:26,828 --> 00:15:29,120 reading the Washington Post, that this sort of came out 278 00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:31,880 of nowhere within the last month or so, 279 00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:34,880 whereas my impression is that over the last year or two, 280 00:15:34,880 --> 00:15:39,200 trade relations with the US have deteriorated, 281 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:41,900 becoming much more mercantilistic-- 282 00:15:41,900 --> 00:15:44,210 the restrictions on foreign participation 283 00:15:44,210 --> 00:15:47,960 in communication systems and hardware, 284 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,090 stopping the smuggling gray market, 285 00:15:50,090 --> 00:15:52,970 which was a significant part of US exports, 286 00:15:52,970 --> 00:15:55,040 and other things like this. 287 00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:58,020 So I guess it's two questions. 288 00:15:58,020 --> 00:16:03,260 One is, what was the motivation for the sudden movement on WTO 289 00:16:03,260 --> 00:16:04,190 by the Chinese? 290 00:16:04,190 --> 00:16:08,240 And, two, do you really think it represents a fundamental shift, 291 00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:14,120 or is this just one more change in the direction of the winds? 292 00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:18,530 Yeah, I think you're right that the investment 293 00:16:18,530 --> 00:16:21,200 environment and the trade investment environment 294 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:25,130 have deteriorated a little bit in China. 295 00:16:25,130 --> 00:16:31,820 Well, my sense is that the two sides have seen this 296 00:16:31,820 --> 00:16:38,480 as the right moment to try to do something and conclude a deal 297 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:43,370 and that the Chinese seem to be willing to make 298 00:16:43,370 --> 00:16:47,810 considerable concessions in order to make that happen. 299 00:16:47,810 --> 00:16:52,520 Now, what anybody who studies Chinese politics 300 00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:55,430 and Chinese government knows is that one 301 00:16:55,430 --> 00:17:01,160 of the enormous problems in China is implementing policy, 302 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:06,109 and that when you have agreements reached, 303 00:17:06,109 --> 00:17:09,589 or when you have national policies enunciated, 304 00:17:09,589 --> 00:17:14,150 getting them enforced all the way through is often easier 305 00:17:14,150 --> 00:17:15,450 said than done. 306 00:17:15,450 --> 00:17:18,140 So, to address the second part of your question, 307 00:17:18,140 --> 00:17:21,290 I think that there would undoubtedly be a period-- 308 00:17:21,290 --> 00:17:25,819 assuming China does accede and is accepted and accedes 309 00:17:25,819 --> 00:17:26,780 to WTO-- 310 00:17:26,780 --> 00:17:29,090 there will undoubtedly be a period 311 00:17:29,090 --> 00:17:34,250 of conflict over the actual implementation 312 00:17:34,250 --> 00:17:38,230 of its obligations as a member. 313 00:17:38,230 --> 00:17:40,000 Thank you. 314 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,330 The Premier had made several references-- or several ways 315 00:17:43,330 --> 00:17:45,610 of trying to describe what exactly is the trade 316 00:17:45,610 --> 00:17:48,280 deficit between US and China, describing a black market, 317 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,310 describing low-cost consumer goods. 318 00:17:51,310 --> 00:17:53,938 But isn't that the way we measure all trade deficits 319 00:17:53,938 --> 00:17:54,980 with all other countries? 320 00:17:54,980 --> 00:17:56,590 So what exactly is the real number, 321 00:17:56,590 --> 00:18:00,642 or does he have a valid argument there? 322 00:18:00,642 --> 00:18:02,350 I'm probably the wrong person to ask what 323 00:18:02,350 --> 00:18:04,780 the real number is on this. 324 00:18:04,780 --> 00:18:11,980 I think he laid out what the positions are on that. 325 00:18:11,980 --> 00:18:16,060 The main problem has been whether or not 326 00:18:16,060 --> 00:18:20,380 you count the transhipment through Hong Kong. 327 00:18:20,380 --> 00:18:23,650 And that's what leads to the gross disparities 328 00:18:23,650 --> 00:18:26,440 between the two. 329 00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:30,490 But I think that it is interesting, and sometimes 330 00:18:30,490 --> 00:18:33,640 overlooked, that when you consider 331 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:36,430 the nature of the products coming 332 00:18:36,430 --> 00:18:40,600 from China, in comparison, say, with the deficit with Japan, 333 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:45,430 it is sort of a somewhat different kind of phenomenon. 334 00:18:45,430 --> 00:18:52,390 That is, unlike Japan, which really had not 335 00:18:52,390 --> 00:18:56,110 adopted a very open foreign investment policy, 336 00:18:56,110 --> 00:18:59,560 China has been, in relative terms, more open. 337 00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:02,620 So there's much more foreign investment 338 00:19:02,620 --> 00:19:04,960 and foreign manufacturing and processing 339 00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:06,860 activities going on there. 340 00:19:06,860 --> 00:19:15,310 And as a result, the products that are coming in oftentimes 341 00:19:15,310 --> 00:19:17,650 produce, as he was pointing out, profits-- 342 00:19:17,650 --> 00:19:19,900 and, in some cases, considerable profits-- 343 00:19:19,900 --> 00:19:21,310 to American firms. 344 00:19:21,310 --> 00:19:24,130 Not surprisingly, the domestic politics 345 00:19:24,130 --> 00:19:26,440 of trade in the United States on China 346 00:19:26,440 --> 00:19:28,480 is quite different from what it has 347 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:33,640 been on Japan, where corporate America has been much more 348 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:35,770 active in much more of a lead role 349 00:19:35,770 --> 00:19:39,250 in attacking the Japanese trade deficit problem, 350 00:19:39,250 --> 00:19:41,500 whereas in the Chinese case, it has 351 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:46,764 been more labor, rather than capital, that has been active. 352 00:19:46,764 --> 00:19:48,610 Yes? 353 00:19:48,610 --> 00:19:50,450 I don't really know much about China at all. 354 00:19:50,450 --> 00:19:53,230 But if I believe what I read in the press, 355 00:19:53,230 --> 00:19:57,030 I think, for most of my life, my basic understanding 356 00:19:57,030 --> 00:19:59,650 about the differences between what we have here 357 00:19:59,650 --> 00:20:02,080 and what things are like there is 358 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:07,180 that we have all sorts of freedoms in the United States. 359 00:20:07,180 --> 00:20:09,070 And perhaps one of the most important ones 360 00:20:09,070 --> 00:20:12,160 is the freedom to dissent, both in the politics 361 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:14,410 of the government, but we also have the freedom 362 00:20:14,410 --> 00:20:16,990 to dissent in the marketplace. 363 00:20:16,990 --> 00:20:19,095 You don't have to run Microsoft software 364 00:20:19,095 --> 00:20:20,320 if you don't want to, and-- 365 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:21,640 [LAUGHTER] 366 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:23,680 I use all sorts of other operating systems. 367 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,090 But anyway. 368 00:20:26,090 --> 00:20:27,610 But now to get to my question-- 369 00:20:27,610 --> 00:20:28,450 I was wondering. 370 00:20:28,450 --> 00:20:33,310 You commented earlier on there are many advanced degrees, 371 00:20:33,310 --> 00:20:36,190 but, somehow, if you look at the experience and the quality 372 00:20:36,190 --> 00:20:37,510 of the training-- 373 00:20:37,510 --> 00:20:40,360 I was wondering, what is the real difference in the quality 374 00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:42,490 of the training, because pretty much what you can 375 00:20:42,490 --> 00:20:44,150 study and learn from books-- 376 00:20:44,150 --> 00:20:46,360 And I thought back on my own education and thought, 377 00:20:46,360 --> 00:20:49,000 actually, the majority of the important education I got 378 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:51,940 was outside of any formal academic curriculum 379 00:20:51,940 --> 00:20:54,580 but was in sort of a sense being-- 380 00:20:54,580 --> 00:20:56,650 the time I was able to spend at MIT 381 00:20:56,650 --> 00:20:59,410 with the other students and the arguments 382 00:20:59,410 --> 00:21:01,340 I would have with them and stuff. 383 00:21:01,340 --> 00:21:05,020 And I was wondering, what is academic life 384 00:21:05,020 --> 00:21:07,750 for these people who have the advanced degrees in China? 385 00:21:07,750 --> 00:21:10,930 I assume that most of them got them in China. 386 00:21:10,930 --> 00:21:15,490 And what is it like in academia, both for the students 387 00:21:15,490 --> 00:21:20,813 and for the faculty and for the people who have relationships 388 00:21:20,813 --> 00:21:21,730 with the universities? 389 00:21:21,730 --> 00:21:23,650 I know that somebody commented yesterday 390 00:21:23,650 --> 00:21:26,096 that you can spend a lot of time-- 391 00:21:26,096 --> 00:21:28,450 you spend four years plus at MIT. 392 00:21:28,450 --> 00:21:31,240 It's kind of a relationship you have as an alum. 393 00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:34,630 Anyway, so my question is, what is academic life in China? 394 00:21:34,630 --> 00:21:37,660 And, in particular, do you have, in academia, 395 00:21:37,660 --> 00:21:39,820 freedom to dissent against prevailing 396 00:21:39,820 --> 00:21:44,840 thought in academia, something that I think we do enjoy here? 397 00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,782 Well, there are a couple of ways of getting at that. 398 00:21:47,782 --> 00:21:49,240 I think the first thing I would say 399 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:54,140 is, one has to recognize generational differences. 400 00:21:54,140 --> 00:22:00,340 So you had a group of people in Zhu's generation, 401 00:22:00,340 --> 00:22:04,450 for instance, who had some of their education 402 00:22:04,450 --> 00:22:06,340 actually before the Communists. 403 00:22:06,340 --> 00:22:10,630 Then you have another group that sort of came in and had 404 00:22:10,630 --> 00:22:12,340 education during the '50s. 405 00:22:12,340 --> 00:22:15,580 And that was an education that was already changing. 406 00:22:15,580 --> 00:22:18,920 The influence of the Soviet Union was part of that. 407 00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:24,680 So, for instance, at that time, in a place like Tsinghua, 408 00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:30,370 which had been defined as kind of a comprehensive university 409 00:22:30,370 --> 00:22:35,140 before 1949, Tsinghua and lots of other places 410 00:22:35,140 --> 00:22:36,910 all began to be-- 411 00:22:36,910 --> 00:22:38,140 all were reorganized. 412 00:22:38,140 --> 00:22:40,930 And their curriculum were changed in order 413 00:22:40,930 --> 00:22:44,230 to make them highly specialized technical institutes, 414 00:22:44,230 --> 00:22:45,400 for the most part. 415 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,980 That was part of the influence of the Soviet Union. 416 00:22:47,980 --> 00:22:53,020 So that marked the educational experiences of a generation 417 00:22:53,020 --> 00:22:54,520 or two of people. 418 00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:58,540 Then you had, in the 1960s, all of the disruptions associated 419 00:22:58,540 --> 00:23:01,370 with the Cultural Revolution. 420 00:23:01,370 --> 00:23:05,890 And that really-- that closed down the educational system 421 00:23:05,890 --> 00:23:08,840 for five, six, seven years. 422 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:10,960 And it was only in the late '70s, then-- 423 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,390 mid-'70s, I guess-- '76-- 424 00:23:13,390 --> 00:23:16,240 that you began to have universities 425 00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:17,350 being reestablished. 426 00:23:17,350 --> 00:23:19,240 And, initially, they were reestablished 427 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:26,830 along the lines of the Soviet system of the 1950s. 428 00:23:26,830 --> 00:23:29,920 A couple of things, though, began to happen at that point. 429 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:33,320 430 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:37,360 First of all, China was, at the same time, 431 00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:40,300 beginning to get a sense or reacquire a sense of what 432 00:23:40,300 --> 00:23:43,510 happens outside of China, and in particular 433 00:23:43,510 --> 00:23:44,620 in the capitalist world. 434 00:23:44,620 --> 00:23:48,460 That was the great breakthrough, from the educational point 435 00:23:48,460 --> 00:23:50,500 of view, of Nixon's trip. 436 00:23:50,500 --> 00:23:53,950 So you began to then have people going out and seeing 437 00:23:53,950 --> 00:23:57,460 that, in fact, this much more innovative, exciting 438 00:23:57,460 --> 00:24:00,370 world in the capitalist world that they were discovering 439 00:24:00,370 --> 00:24:03,890 had an educational system, had higher education 440 00:24:03,890 --> 00:24:06,430 institutions, research institutions, that 441 00:24:06,430 --> 00:24:08,450 were markedly different. 442 00:24:08,450 --> 00:24:11,890 And so that, then, began to produce a period-- 443 00:24:11,890 --> 00:24:15,010 some thinking about reforms in education 444 00:24:15,010 --> 00:24:20,460 that began to kick in in the 1980s and are continuing today. 445 00:24:20,460 --> 00:24:23,200 The Chinese were doing a lot of reforms from the beginning 446 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,050 of the 1980s until 1996. 447 00:24:26,050 --> 00:24:28,450 They weren't putting too much money into them. 448 00:24:28,450 --> 00:24:30,970 Now-- and that's what he was alluding to-- in the last two 449 00:24:30,970 --> 00:24:34,750 or three years, expenditures on science and education 450 00:24:34,750 --> 00:24:36,340 are finally beginning to go up. 451 00:24:36,340 --> 00:24:39,260 They're still way below where they should be. 452 00:24:39,260 --> 00:24:44,600 So you have-- it depends a lot on generations. 453 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:46,820 Another thing I would just say that turns back 454 00:24:46,820 --> 00:24:49,730 to your question about the freedoms-- 455 00:24:49,730 --> 00:24:54,500 I think he is quite right in saying that, in some ways, 456 00:24:54,500 --> 00:24:57,020 you can look in China and say there's more rights now 457 00:24:57,020 --> 00:25:00,110 than there have been perhaps ever before. 458 00:25:00,110 --> 00:25:03,350 If you go back and you look at what 459 00:25:03,350 --> 00:25:06,620 happened to graduates of places like Tsinghua 460 00:25:06,620 --> 00:25:09,080 or any other higher educational institution 461 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,890 under the old system, the Soviet-inspired system, 462 00:25:12,890 --> 00:25:16,820 they in fact had no rights of employment. 463 00:25:16,820 --> 00:25:18,260 They were assigned. 464 00:25:18,260 --> 00:25:22,520 They all got sucked up into the great central planning system. 465 00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:26,900 And they were assigned to that job, this job, that ministry, 466 00:25:26,900 --> 00:25:30,000 this university, this research institute, and so forth. 467 00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,270 In short, there was no labor market-- 468 00:25:32,270 --> 00:25:35,390 free labor market-- for a graduate. 469 00:25:35,390 --> 00:25:36,980 That has now changed. 470 00:25:36,980 --> 00:25:44,300 And it's that kind of change from no freedoms for choices 471 00:25:44,300 --> 00:25:47,750 about careers, for choices about housing, 472 00:25:47,750 --> 00:25:50,660 for choices about all kinds of things, that 473 00:25:50,660 --> 00:25:52,280 has changed so dramatically. 474 00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,830 That's why there's no question. 475 00:25:54,830 --> 00:25:58,260 If you look over the past 20 years, 476 00:25:58,260 --> 00:26:01,250 China has become an infinitely more liberal society 477 00:26:01,250 --> 00:26:03,170 than it was. 478 00:26:03,170 --> 00:26:04,850 Does it extend to dissent? 479 00:26:04,850 --> 00:26:06,260 No. 480 00:26:06,260 --> 00:26:08,660 And that's the big interesting question. 481 00:26:08,660 --> 00:26:13,640 Can China become the sort of dynamic, innovative society 482 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:18,240 it wants and still maintain this tight political control? 483 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,780 We would probably guess no. 484 00:26:20,780 --> 00:26:22,130 So it's a kind of contradiction. 485 00:26:22,130 --> 00:26:23,030 [? David. ?] 486 00:26:23,030 --> 00:26:23,900 I have a question. 487 00:26:23,900 --> 00:26:26,180 And it's also about a big cultural difference 488 00:26:26,180 --> 00:26:28,820 between the countries that you might help us with. 489 00:26:28,820 --> 00:26:31,670 When we hear the Premier talking about education, and change 490 00:26:31,670 --> 00:26:34,670 there, and getting on this information revolution train 491 00:26:34,670 --> 00:26:36,680 that you're talking about, it seems, 492 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,790 to a Western, European mind, that a great block 493 00:26:40,790 --> 00:26:43,190 is the Chinese language system itself, 494 00:26:43,190 --> 00:26:45,230 the character-based system and so forth. 495 00:26:45,230 --> 00:26:47,150 And can you tell us anything about efforts-- 496 00:26:47,150 --> 00:26:48,860 We'd heard Mao was once interested 497 00:26:48,860 --> 00:26:51,380 in an alphabetical sort of reform. 498 00:26:51,380 --> 00:26:56,030 Is anything like that going on in China today? 499 00:26:56,030 --> 00:26:57,050 Not really. 500 00:26:57,050 --> 00:26:57,920 I don't think that. 501 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,430 What is happening is that there has 502 00:27:01,430 --> 00:27:09,050 been a very significant growth of the software 503 00:27:09,050 --> 00:27:14,840 industry designed to make PCs more 504 00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,263 user-friendly in a Chinese-language environment. 505 00:27:19,263 --> 00:27:21,680 This, again, is I think one of the very interesting things 506 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,490 that ties back to the question that, again, that MIT 507 00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:27,440 student was asking. 508 00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:32,030 In the last 15 years, roughly, now, 509 00:27:32,030 --> 00:27:36,050 there has been the growth of a whole series of spin-off 510 00:27:36,050 --> 00:27:37,440 companies in China-- 511 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:39,440 and they really refer to them as that-- 512 00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,110 coming out of the academy, institutes, 513 00:27:42,110 --> 00:27:43,340 out of the universities. 514 00:27:43,340 --> 00:27:47,900 Tsinghua, for instance, runs a whole series of companies. 515 00:27:47,900 --> 00:27:53,150 And these companies-- it's a long story, 516 00:27:53,150 --> 00:27:58,880 but they really do represent a significant, and I think one 517 00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:02,210 would argue probably the most hopeful sign, 518 00:28:02,210 --> 00:28:05,570 for China's future industrialization 519 00:28:05,570 --> 00:28:08,120 or future industrial trajectory. 520 00:28:08,120 --> 00:28:12,500 They still, for the most part, are fairly small. 521 00:28:12,500 --> 00:28:16,550 But if you then look and say, well, what fields are they in? 522 00:28:16,550 --> 00:28:18,980 And the answer is they're in a whole range 523 00:28:18,980 --> 00:28:20,330 of high-tech fields. 524 00:28:20,330 --> 00:28:23,630 But one of them is, in fact, in software. 525 00:28:23,630 --> 00:28:25,790 And a lot of the emphasis that has 526 00:28:25,790 --> 00:28:30,470 gone into that has been to try to make Chinese, 527 00:28:30,470 --> 00:28:36,770 written Chinese, interact with information technology. 528 00:28:36,770 --> 00:28:38,940 So it's beginning to happen. 529 00:28:38,940 --> 00:28:43,680 The whole-- Romanization is used, 530 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,270 but I think that there is no serious thought of giving up 531 00:28:47,270 --> 00:28:48,170 Chinese characters. 532 00:28:48,170 --> 00:28:49,880 They're culturally too important. 533 00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,250 You think that the average Chinese access 534 00:28:52,250 --> 00:28:54,620 out into the internet will be impaired 535 00:28:54,620 --> 00:28:56,900 by this very big difference between us and them, 536 00:28:56,900 --> 00:29:00,320 or will machines and translation and tools 537 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,020 make it as easy for them to see the internet 538 00:29:03,020 --> 00:29:05,920 as the rest of the world will see it? 539 00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:10,250 I think that's the question that is on the mind of people 540 00:29:10,250 --> 00:29:12,140 even that at the Zhu Rongji level. 541 00:29:12,140 --> 00:29:13,730 I should just add, just on that point, 542 00:29:13,730 --> 00:29:19,340 Zhu Rongji does share a very high-level science, technology, 543 00:29:19,340 --> 00:29:20,360 and education group. 544 00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,812 So he's got a kind of hands-on group 545 00:29:22,812 --> 00:29:24,770 that involves the ministry of science, ministry 546 00:29:24,770 --> 00:29:27,260 of education, a few others. 547 00:29:27,260 --> 00:29:31,160 But they're quite conscious of all of this. 548 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:38,570 And, so, if you look at the internet computerization 549 00:29:38,570 --> 00:29:41,070 expansion in China, which is now occurring very, 550 00:29:41,070 --> 00:29:45,440 very rapidly, you see that one of the objectives of government 551 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:50,610 policy is to ensure that there's more Chinese-language content. 552 00:29:50,610 --> 00:29:54,360 And, for some people, that's part-- 553 00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,160 some observers have suggested that that's 554 00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,790 part of an elaborate strategy to kind of build 555 00:29:59,790 --> 00:30:04,260 firewalls against the influence of the West. 556 00:30:04,260 --> 00:30:08,040 But there's also, I think, a genuine consideration of, 557 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,750 how do you disseminate this technology in a country 558 00:30:12,750 --> 00:30:15,102 with that kind of a population? 559 00:30:15,102 --> 00:30:16,560 It would have been very interesting 560 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,900 if we had had-- if we can bring Bill Gates back again 561 00:30:18,900 --> 00:30:21,240 to talk about China. 562 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,250 I sometimes think Bill Gates is probably 563 00:30:23,250 --> 00:30:28,290 more important to the leadership of China than Bill Clinton. 564 00:30:28,290 --> 00:30:30,870 But one of the fascinating things that Microsoft is 565 00:30:30,870 --> 00:30:33,120 doing-- and maybe there's someone from Microsoft still 566 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:33,720 here-- 567 00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,800 is that they have now made a pretty big commitment 568 00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:39,870 to the China market. 569 00:30:39,870 --> 00:30:43,560 And I think they call the project the Venus Project. 570 00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,200 And the idea is to basically provide 571 00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:52,140 a web computer that will then be very low cost 572 00:30:52,140 --> 00:30:57,850 and will be very user friendly to Chinese households. 573 00:30:57,850 --> 00:30:59,820 So there's a lot going on in that area. 574 00:30:59,820 --> 00:31:02,040 And I'm sure at MIT there are probably 575 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,654 a lot of people who know much more about it than I do. 576 00:31:05,654 --> 00:31:07,030 [INAUDIBLE] 577 00:31:07,030 --> 00:31:08,560 Sure. 578 00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:11,260 How would you contrast the fundamental interest 579 00:31:11,260 --> 00:31:14,920 of the United States towards China versus Russia's 580 00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,980 fundamental interest involving China? 581 00:31:17,980 --> 00:31:20,830 Are we kind of moving into a tripartite world, 582 00:31:20,830 --> 00:31:26,740 or is it a superpower-- a two-party world yet? 583 00:31:26,740 --> 00:31:28,180 Well, again, maybe that goes back 584 00:31:28,180 --> 00:31:30,310 to the question about worst-case cases. 585 00:31:30,310 --> 00:31:34,360 586 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,820 There is an interesting relationship 587 00:31:36,820 --> 00:31:39,750 that the Chinese and the Russians have. 588 00:31:39,750 --> 00:31:42,190 The Chinese are getting a lot of military hardware 589 00:31:42,190 --> 00:31:43,900 from the Russians. 590 00:31:43,900 --> 00:31:45,940 They're getting a lot of scientists, actually, 591 00:31:45,940 --> 00:31:48,950 from Russia as well. 592 00:31:48,950 --> 00:31:52,810 And when you look at something like the Kosovo issue, 593 00:31:52,810 --> 00:31:56,620 there apparently one sees a kind of commonality of interest 594 00:31:56,620 --> 00:31:58,700 between the two of them. 595 00:31:58,700 --> 00:32:01,120 But on the other hand, if you really look at-- 596 00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,440 you think a little bit about what Zhu Rongji was saying, 597 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,080 Russia simply is not in the position 598 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,660 to do what the United States does for China. 599 00:32:10,660 --> 00:32:15,640 It is not that enormous, mass, highly affluent market 600 00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:19,390 to suck up Chinese manufactures and goods. 601 00:32:19,390 --> 00:32:23,110 It really isn't the source of most of the technologies 602 00:32:23,110 --> 00:32:25,650 that are most interesting to the Chinese. 603 00:32:25,650 --> 00:32:27,580 They go to the Soviets because they sometimes 604 00:32:27,580 --> 00:32:29,955 can't-- or the Russians-- [? because ?] they can't get it 605 00:32:29,955 --> 00:32:31,360 from other places. 606 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,360 And, of course, again, going back to the training question, 607 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,420 there is a generation of Chinese leaders 608 00:32:37,420 --> 00:32:40,060 and professionals and scientists who 609 00:32:40,060 --> 00:32:41,710 had their training in the Soviet Union 610 00:32:41,710 --> 00:32:44,950 and have maintained close ties. 611 00:32:44,950 --> 00:32:50,890 But I think that if you had a significant souring 612 00:32:50,890 --> 00:32:54,370 of relations with the United States, 613 00:32:54,370 --> 00:32:55,900 one of the things that would happen 614 00:32:55,900 --> 00:32:57,940 is that that relationship with Russia 615 00:32:57,940 --> 00:33:01,580 would increase and become more important. 616 00:33:01,580 --> 00:33:04,060 But it doesn't, ultimately, I don't think, 617 00:33:04,060 --> 00:33:06,730 serve China's interests as well. 618 00:33:06,730 --> 00:33:10,000 And there are, of course, historic frictions and problems 619 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,430 as well, that you can look to. 620 00:33:12,430 --> 00:33:15,430 I guess one more question. 621 00:33:15,430 --> 00:33:18,190 This is a cultural question, too. 622 00:33:18,190 --> 00:33:21,160 Mary Potter asked what the situation of women 623 00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:22,690 was in China. 624 00:33:22,690 --> 00:33:26,110 And he answered it in the specific 625 00:33:26,110 --> 00:33:29,610 that, here I have a woman vice premier with me, 626 00:33:29,610 --> 00:33:30,730 so everything's great. 627 00:33:30,730 --> 00:33:32,950 But how would you compare, culturally, 628 00:33:32,950 --> 00:33:37,590 the freedom and power and education of women 629 00:33:37,590 --> 00:33:41,200 in China vis-a-vis the US? 630 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:46,180 Well, the Confucian tradition was probably much more 631 00:33:46,180 --> 00:33:49,570 patriarchal than anything one knows in the West, 632 00:33:49,570 --> 00:33:51,130 to begin with. 633 00:33:51,130 --> 00:33:56,020 But the Communist Party, when they seized power in '49, 634 00:33:56,020 --> 00:34:01,000 did in fact embrace principles of gender equality 635 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:04,300 and set about trying to change things a bit. 636 00:34:04,300 --> 00:34:07,030 And they did, I think, in many ways. 637 00:34:07,030 --> 00:34:11,980 You see women in-- 638 00:34:11,980 --> 00:34:14,830 opportunities for women in a whole variety 639 00:34:14,830 --> 00:34:17,500 of activities and professions. 640 00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:19,670 But I think that what's interesting about-- 641 00:34:19,670 --> 00:34:22,915 and I think a lot of people who have studied this more than I 642 00:34:22,915 --> 00:34:26,260 have would suggest that, in spite of Madame Wu Yi 643 00:34:26,260 --> 00:34:29,350 and a few people like that, in general, 644 00:34:29,350 --> 00:34:32,889 women still have not reached the upper echelons of whatever 645 00:34:32,889 --> 00:34:34,750 it is that they're doing. 646 00:34:34,750 --> 00:34:37,060 He made reference to the Women's Federation, 647 00:34:37,060 --> 00:34:38,800 a mass organization. 648 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,510 That is really basically controlled 649 00:34:40,510 --> 00:34:41,650 by the Communist Party. 650 00:34:41,650 --> 00:34:45,940 And there are those who say that, however 651 00:34:45,940 --> 00:34:50,440 much that advances causes of women, in fact, ultimately, 652 00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,600 it doesn't, because it is just simply 653 00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:55,239 an instrument of control. 654 00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:57,430 There's an interesting question about whether or not 655 00:34:57,430 --> 00:35:00,070 the reform period, the marketization, 656 00:35:00,070 --> 00:35:03,130 has improved or hurt the chances of women. 657 00:35:03,130 --> 00:35:06,790 Some people, I think, would argue that, as marketization-- 658 00:35:06,790 --> 00:35:09,400 especially in the countryside-- has occurred, 659 00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:13,720 the status of women has gotten worse in the countryside. 660 00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:17,410 On the other hand, I think in the urban, more modernized 661 00:35:17,410 --> 00:35:21,790 sectors you see maybe more opportunities coming along. 662 00:35:21,790 --> 00:35:24,640 But, again, I think it is true that there 663 00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,200 seems to be a kind of glass ceiling at work. 664 00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:28,450 And some work that I've done-- 665 00:35:28,450 --> 00:35:33,760 I just recently finished a paper on China's system 666 00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:34,840 of academicians. 667 00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:36,490 They have a new system-- 668 00:35:36,490 --> 00:35:40,360 a new academy of engineering and a Chinese Academy of Sciences-- 669 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:48,580 where they're trying to establish an honorific system 670 00:35:48,580 --> 00:35:50,230 for scientists and engineers. 671 00:35:50,230 --> 00:35:53,650 And if you look at the membership of that, 672 00:35:53,650 --> 00:35:57,400 you can see pretty definitely that women 673 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:58,990 are somewhat disadvantaged. 674 00:35:58,990 --> 00:36:01,180 If you then go back and look a little bit more 675 00:36:01,180 --> 00:36:06,690 at women leading important national R&D programs, 676 00:36:06,690 --> 00:36:08,600 they do much better there. 677 00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,250 So there seems to be a disjunction 678 00:36:11,250 --> 00:36:13,200 between opportunities up to a point 679 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,980 where you can have very significant responsibilities 680 00:36:16,980 --> 00:36:19,800 and opportunities as a woman professional, 681 00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,140 but then, beyond that, there seems 682 00:36:22,140 --> 00:36:25,270 to be something of a block. 683 00:36:25,270 --> 00:36:26,710 Thank you. 684 00:36:26,710 --> 00:36:27,310 One more? 685 00:36:27,310 --> 00:36:28,210 Thank you very much. 686 00:36:28,210 --> 00:36:30,960 [APPLAUSE] 687 00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:50,000