Remarks of Donald M. Bishop at the Fulbright Alumni Conference

Beijing, April 18, 2005

It's a pleasure to join this conference, allowing me to set aside the hassles of embassy work to join, for a few hours, the fellowship of scholars, where I spent some happy years before I joined the Foreign Service. I was teaching history when I took the Foreign Service examination. Anyone could spot me walking through the classroom building by the chalk dust covering my clothes.
 
Yes, I come from the chalk and blackboard generation.  I was at Peking University on Thursday as a guest lecturer, in the history department.  I was delighted that the room had a blackboard.  I noticed that when I finished my talk I was covered with chalk, and I was happy.
 
Let me show you that I still have some of the historian inside me.  A student at the university asked me why Americans had ignored China in the late 1930s as it faced Japanese aggression.  Of course I explained President Roosevelt’s commitment to China and the many sanctions imposed on Japan.  It was the next day, however, that I had a better answer.
 
Let me show you this copy of an American high school newspaper.  It is the Vindex, the newspaper of Elmira Free Academy, located in a railroad town in upstate New York.  The date of the newspaper is November 4, 1938.  That is in the middle of Franklin Roosevelt’s second administration.  Why do I have this copy?  My father was the paper’s editor.
 
This issue was published a few days before the mid-term Congressional elections of 1938.  And look at this advertisement for the Democratic candidates that year.  The headline – REMEMBER CHINA AND CZECHOSLAVAKIA, VOTE THE DEMOCRATIC TICKET FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE.  Indeed many Americans were focused on China and its war with Japan.
 
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Even 150 years ago, there were many who knew that China and the United States, the two largest countries on the eastern and western shores of
the Pacific, were natural partners and friends. Ours were the two great
countries of work, respect for education, and business acumen. U.S.-China
trade and the early American investments in businesses, in hospitals and
medical schools, and in education pointed the way to a future of cooperation
and rapport.
 
China and America were sharing ideas during the Boy Scholars studied in New England in the nineteenth century, when the Boxer Indemnity Scholars began to study in the U.S. during the early twentieth century, and when organizations like Yale in China sent Americans here. Chinese listened to the lectures of John Dewey, and Americans read the novels of Pearl Buck and Lin Yutang.  The partnership deepened when President Roosevelt -- using what we would now call sanctions -- opposed the Japanese conquests in China. And of course China and the United States were allies during the Second World War.  After the war ended, Senator Fulbright had the vision that the international exchange of scholars could help make the world a more peaceful and more prosperous place. The first group of Fulbright scholars came to China in 1946.
 
We meet to mark the 25^th anniversary of the resumption of that program and to focus on the contributions made by the Fulbright Program and educational exchanges to China’s development and the growing depth of U.S.-China relations.  Let me give some examples.
 
China has firmly decided that its economy must move in the direction of markets and enterprise.  It understands the need for free trade rather than protectionism, for securities market liberalization, and for the introduction of financial services. A firm commitment to open the economy today does not, however, make it open tomorrow. China needs the accountants, the actuaries, the brokers, the financial planners, the managers, the loan officers, the bank examiners, and the market regulators necessary to make the markets and enterprise system work. It also needs many of the economic institutions of civil society -- boards of realtors and industry associations and Rotary Clubs. It needs the binding ties of commonly shared business ethics.
 
It will be China’s universities where these ideas are incubated and the new generation must learn these many new roles.  Chinese Fulbright alumni in economics, trade, finance, and business administration will be their teachers.
 
China’s leaership and people understand the need for the rule of law, not just rule by law. A firm commitment to the rule of law today does not, however, create a just society tomorrow.  China needs active bar associations, discipline committees, legal aid programs, public defenders, the tradition of pro bono work, class actions, and contingency fees.  It's hard to find definitive texts of laws, regulations, and court decisions. And China needs the culture of the binding contract and the equal protection of the law.
 
Chinese know that the rule of law must come, and they know it must come
sooner, not later. But it is the work of years and decades to educate and
train legal professionals, to change the mentality of the police, to write new
textbooks, to strengthen the law schools, to establish continuing legal
education programs -- in short to change direction, to mature, to imbed the
rule of law in the heart of governance, and to teach China's citizens how law
protects them.
 
I suggest to you all that these ideas will be incubated and nourished in China’s universities.  Fulbright alumni – in law, political science, public administration, and other fields – will be the teachers of the new generation.
 
All over China people in all walks of life sense that American social science models may be helpful as China moves forward.  Even if China looks to American social science models today, however, it will not solve China's problems tomorrow. Where are the market economists? The political
scientists?  The specialists in local government?  The labor negotiators?  The
fundraisers?  The NGOS?  The pollsters and survey researchers?  Who will write environmental impact statements?  Where are the legislators who will sponsor hearings?  Where are the specialists on the United States who understand what is suggestive and useful, and answer the questions that arise?
 
They must come from China’s universities.  Fulbright alumni in all the social science disciplines can help inspire and teach the students for these callings of tomorrow.
 
Who can help Chinese understand the context of what Americans say?  Who will provide the interior historical understanding of American government?  Who will share with them how the Civil War or the Vietnam War affect us and our policies even today?  Who will help them understand how memories of the Holocaust move Americans to speak out about human rights violations?  Who can explain how religious faith influences American society and American politics?  Who will lead them through Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whitman, Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, Faulkner, Langston Hughes, John Updike, and Alice Walker?  There are corners of Americans' minds where these authors reside, as strongly as the classics and Lao She and Lu Xun illuminate Chinese consciences.
 
Chinese will not learn this deeper understanding from television, Hollywood, or the NBA.  They must learn these lessons at universities.  It is likely to be Fulbright alumni in American studies who teach the new generation about the United States, and how our two nations can cooperate for true mutual benefit.
 
Thoughtful Chinese know their country's needs for change.  Markets and
enterprise, law, the social sciences -- these are but a few of the areas where
change should come sooner than later. Quickly or slowly, however, China's
educational institutions will be central to the change.
 
Fulbright alumni!  China needs the learning that you have -- the courses, the case studies, the knowledge of textbooks, the syllabi, the degree sequences, the examination methods, the newest research -- for the students you will teach, for your colleagues on the faculty, and for those they both will reach in ever widening circles as they share their knowledge with others.
 
Let me close. I said earlier that in the 19^th century many understood that China and the United States are natural partners.  At the beginning of the 21st century, we need the bracing wind of the original vision. In the meantime, our countries' populations and economies have become larger.
Transportation and communication have brought us closer. And the stakes have become even greater.
 
There are many dimensions to U.S.-China relations in the 21^st century.  We know that from time to time there are frictions and clashes.  However, through warm breezes and chill winds, the education exchange relationship keeps our two nations in contact and dialog.  In the past, exchanges and visits seemed easy items to cancel when one side offended the other.  Some apparently thought exchanges and visits to be a kind of reward for good behavior.  In recent years, however, there has been increasing appreciation that exchanges are an anchor for U.S.-China relations, even in choppy weather.
 
There are many controversies associated with America's China policy. But
there's something that liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, hard- and soft-liners, and those who support and those who oppose the engagement policy agree on. It's a nonpartisan area of agreement, and it's something that Chinese agree with too. Everyone agrees that the work of Fulbright professors is vital for the relationship between China and the United States.
 
Thank you.