Global Strategies

Musings on Higher Ed Mission Statements

The Oregon Board of Higher Education is scheduled to meet 10/3/08 on the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. On the agenda for discussion is an item titled “Review of Institution Mission Statements and Broad Goals,” meaning:

As the next step toward implementation of the “OUS Portfolio,” the Board will consider

mission statements of all OUS institutions in anticipation of an action item in November

on one or more of them, discuss broad goals and directions of institutions in relation to

those mission statements, and provide guidance to institutions regarding next steps in

shaping their mission statements for future Board approval.

Now I have had my problems with the Oregon University System. The world has become smaller, flatter and more interconnected thus increasing the utility of foreign languages for maintaining a competitive economy. And strategically, the rise of China as an economic and geopolitical power requires a response. We should be increasing all foreign languages study, but with a clear focus on increased Mandarin studies. And we should be vastly increasing study abroad programs at the college level. This all seems obvious to me.

I have repeatedly written the members of the Board of Higher Education on these issues. No response from them. To my knowledge, during the past two years, neither the Board of Higher Education, nor the Chancellor, nor any of the seven institutional presidents, has taken any action to increase the number of OUS students studying Mandarin. Even worse, the Board of Higher Education’s Portland Higher Education Subcommittee produced a documents: “Portland’s Higher Education Agenda for the 21^st Century” that did not even mention China. In February, 2007, OSU, U of O, and PSU each reported to the Oregon House Education Committee that they currently had about 1.5% of their students studying Mandarin. China may well have an economy twice the size of the US economy by 2050. 1.5% is just not adequate. Not if Oregon wants to be a player in the global economy.

So, that’s my perspective. But, is Higher Ed not responding to this high priority, strategic need because it is not in their mission statements to do so? Or because we do not have the right leaders at the institutional level? Or because we do not have the right Board members? Or because the Governor and legislature are not urging them to take action on this issue? Or because any or all of the above players do not consider Mandarin and study abroad a high priority issue?

Let’s look at the current mission statement of our three premier institutions (see here, starts on page 59)

Oregon StateUniversity Mission Statement

As a land grant institution, Oregon State University promotes economic, social, cultural and environmental progress for people across Oregon, the nation and the world through our graduates, research, scholarship and engagement activities.

Portland State University Mission Statement

The mission of Portland State University is to enhance the intellectual, social, cultural,

and economic qualities of urban life by providing access throughout the life span to a

quality liberal education for undergraduates and an appropriate array of professional

and graduate programs especially relevant to metropolitan areas. The University

conducts research and community service that support a high-quality educational

environment and reflect issues important to the region. It actively promotes the

development of a network of educational institutions to serve the community.

University of Oregon Mission Statement (summarized)

The University is a community of scholars dedicated to the highest standards of

academic inquiry, learning, and service. Recognizing that knowledge is the fundamental

wealth of civilization, the University strives to enrich the public that sustains it through:

(1) a commitment to undergraduate and graduate education…; (2) a recognition that

research, both basic and applied, is essential to the intellectual health of the University,

as well as to the enrichment of the lives of Oregonians…; (3) the establishment of a

framework for lifelong learning…; (4) the integration of teaching, research, and service

as mutually enriching enterprises…; (5) …welcoming and guiding change rather than

reacting to it; (6) dedication to the principles of equality of opportunity…; (7) a

commitment to international awareness and understanding…; (8) …freedom of thought

and expression…; (9) cultivation of an attitude toward citizenship that fosters… the wise

exercise of civic responsibilities and individual judgment; and (10) a continuing

commitment to affordable public higher education.

Several observations: (1) None of these mission statements would prohibit an institution from expanding its Mandarin and study abroad programs; (2) None of these mission statements gives direct support or priority to efforts to expand Mandarin and study abroad programs. (3) Therefore, perhaps, these mission statements are mostly irrelevant and the problem rests with the people interpreting them (Board members, Chancellor, and institutional presidents).

Recommendation: that each mission statement adds a phrase “provide education and develop student skills so that the next generation of Oregonian citizens can survive and prosper in the future global economy and geo-political environment.”

 

The Myopia of Mercy Corps

Now who can be against fighting hunger and poverty?  Not me. So, using words from Rich Read’s Oregonian article (below at end of post and here), I would support Mercy Corps’ plans “to mobilize more than a million Americans -- especially youth -- to help combat world poverty and hunger in a $17.3 million initiative.” We should all want to combat world poverty and hunger.

Yet, Mercy Corps continues to disappoint me. They have resisted playing any role in Oregon to expand foreign language and study abroad programs. Nor does this national program on world hunger and poverty put any emphasis on today’s students developing the skills and experiences for working in other countries and cultures. Seems myopic.

Mercy Corps’ online “Action Center to End World Hunger” currently features four actions that a student can take to end world hunger: (1) donate to Tree-Nation for a tree planting in Niger; (2) make monthly donations to Mercy Corps’ “Heroes Against Hunger” program to “speed food to those in need, teach vital agricultural skills or provide nutritional advice to families;” (3) join the “We Campaign, ” “a network of people from all walks of life who believe we must act now to address the climate crisis;”  and (4) become a Americorps VISTA volunteer. There are approximately thirty-one more such suggested actions. See here.

There is no suggested “action” from Mercy Corps that a student learn a foreign language. There is no suggested “action” that a high school or college student study abroad for an academic year. There is no “action” to create high school study abroad programs in the state and school district where a student may live. Does Mercy Corps really not see these potential “actions” as useful? Seems myopic.

Mercy Corps is a Portland, Oregon based corporation. To my knowledge, they have not used their influence with other businesses in Oregon or with Oregon’s general political community to advocate for more and better foreign language and study abroad programs in Oregon’s public schools. Seems myopic.

What Mercy Corps should do is advocate for more and better foreign language and study abroad programs nationally. Put that on their action list.  Since it would cost nothing to implement my “High School Study Abroad Scholarship Programs” (here) in school districts all across America, in five or ten years, the US could have ten percent of its high school Juniors studying abroad, many in places endemic with hunger and poverty.

Open your eyes Mercy Corps! Innovate! And help us out in Oregon! Be the Change!

Rich Read’s Oregonian article (9/26/08) “Mercy Corps aims to draw youth to fight hungar, poverty: The Portland-based agency plans to spend $17.3 million to fight povery:”

Mercy Corps plans to mobilize more than a million Americans -- especially youth -- to help combat world poverty and hunger in a $17.3 million initiative announced Thursday by former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton described the commitment in New York at the opening session of his Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering of international leaders.

The five-year Mercy Corps effort represents an expanding U.S. outreach by the Portland-based humanitarian organization, known primarily for its relief and development work in more than 35 countries.

The centerpiece will be a $5.3 million interactive multimedia center that Mercy Corps plans to open in lower Manhattan on Oct. 16, World Food Day.

"The Action Center to End World Hunger will provide a powerful platform to educate people -- particularly young people -- about hunger and poverty and empower them to take actions to help root out hunger in communities around the world," said Nancy Lindborg, Mercy Corps president.

A similar center is scheduled to open next year in Mercy Corps' $25 million world headquarters, under construction in Portland's Old Town.

Mercy Corps managers plan to mobilize more than a million people by expanding a youth network called the Global Citizen Corps and by drawing visitors to the corps' Web site, the action center and the center's site. The Citizen Corps has about 5,000 high-school-age members, more than 200 of whom undergo training as activists and run educational, advocacy and fundraising projects.

"We certainly don't tell them what to do," said Joy Portella, communications director. "We give them the tools."

Mercy Corps aims to expand that network in the United States and next in Scotland. Managers expect at least 375,000 people to visit the New York action center within five years, and more than 675,000 hits on the center's Web site, www.actioncenter.org. Those numbers, plus hits expected on the youth network's site, www.globalcitizencorps.org, will give Mercy Corps its million-plus.

Mercy Corps has raised about $5 million so far toward the $17.3 million cost of operating the New York center and the citizen corps for five years. Financial backers include Best Buy, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Governor K: Find a Larger Vision for the Oregon-China Connection

Governor Kulongoski is going to go to China to talk to auto maker BYD “about making Portland a proving grounds for a new wave of all- or mostly electric cars.” (see Oregonian article here and at end of this post). Kulongoski understands and has political support for “sustainability” as a theme for economic growth. Electric cars fit right in there. He is right and this effort is good. But Kulongoski does not understand the growing importance of China both economically and in geo-political strategic terms, nor does he have a China policy, nor has he put any effort into developing political support for a more robust Oregon- China connection.  For this failure, future historian will knock his rating down at least one grade.

I do not know if it would make any difference to auto maker BYD if Oregon had five percent of it high school graduates fluent in Mandarin. - Maybe. Or 1,650 Oregon high school students spending one month each summer in China studying Mandarin and living with a Chinese family. - Maybe. Or 1,000 Oregon high school students spending their high school sophomore or junior year studying in China. – Maybe.

I do know that Governor Kulongoski is not asking the 2009 legislature to do any of the above. To his shame! It could make a big difference - for economic development, for national security, and for world peace. He just does not get it. Governor Kulongoski needs to find a larger vision for the Oregon-China connection.

“Kulongoski says Oregon must invest in green jobs, electric cars” by Harry Esteve, 9/25/08:

Oregon's economy, bad as it may be right now, will cycle back to better times, says Gov. Ted Kulongoski, and when it does, he wants the state in the driver's seat of a lucrative future market: electric cars.

With that in mind, Kulongoski has scheduled a trade trip to Japan and China in late November to talk to Toyota and Chinese car manufacturer BYD about making Portland a proving ground for a new wave of all- or mostly electric vehicles.

Eventually, he said, he'd like to see the low- and no-emission cars not only zipping along Oregon streets and highways but also manufactured here. For that to happen, he said, the state needs to provide battery-charging stations along major routes as well as tax incentives to encourage the public to buy the new cars.

"I don't believe Oregon is going to be the new Detroit," Kulongoski said. "But they're trying to find a locality in North America to assemble their electric cars. And that's what I'd like to do."

The governor, in an hourlong sit-down with The Oregonian on Thursday, said he understands Oregonians are worried about their economic future, especially given the uncertainty about what will happen in Washington, D.C., and on Wall Street.

"I'm just like any other person when you ask me 'Where's the bottom?' I don't know," Kulongoski said.

Oregon's economy, however, reflects what's happening nationally and will rebound along with the rest of the nation when the financial markets stabilize, the governor said. When that happens, he wants the state ready to jump on the emerging green economy of renewable and alternative energy and the move to battery-powered cars.

"I don't want to be catching up with other states," Kulongoski said. "I want other states to be catching up with us."

As presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain met with President Bush and congressional leaders to work on a potential government bailout of the banking sector, Kulongoski talked about his plans for a belt-tightening 2009 legislative session. He said he expects lawmakers to confront tough decisions about cutting programs because of weakening state revenue projections.

And as for the state's rainy day funds -- mitts off, he will tell lawmakers.

"I know there will be a great desire to get into the reserve accounts," which total about $850 million between the education stability fund and the newly created rainy day fund, Kulongoski said. Instead of spending that money, he said he will "prioritize" the budget, putting education and health care first, then look for programs to cut if needed.

"It will take discipline," he said. "It will not be without controversy."

His comment drew a skeptical response from a House Republican leader.

"We're glad the governor has embraced fiscal responsibility, but at this point, his words don't matter," said Rep. Andy Olson, R-Albany, the deputy minority leader. "Let's face it, in 2003, the governor said the state should live within its means, then proceeded to sign off on the largest tax increase in history."

Olson said Kulongoski should start looking at more short-term economic fixes. One he mentioned would be to adopt a U.S. Bureau of Land Management proposal to increase timber harvests.

"That would create serious jobs out there," Olson said. As for the governor's interest in encouraging green energy and electric cars as an economic boost, Olson said: "He'd better be right."

Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said it's fine for the governor to look at the long-term economic picture but Oregon needs some quick action as well. Courtney has proposed using state bonding authority to spend as much as $1 billion on construction projects, which would give jobs to thousands.

US Military, like Oregon, Slow to Develop Strategic Foreign Language Capabilities

Neither the legislative nor the executive branches of Oregon government have taken any steps to expand the foreign languages capabilities of Oregon's high school and colleges graduates. As the globe becomes smaller, flatter and more interconnected, Oregon state government and its statewide educational systems putter on unchanged. No statewide government report articulating the proposition that foreign language proficiencies provide a competitive advantage in an interconnected global economy. No suggestion of the important role of foreign languages and connections in stimulating innovation, the key to a dynamic economy.

 

But, unfortunately, the US military is not much further ahead than Oregon. The military did several years ago recognize that it had a problem. But progress has been too slow and much remains to be done. And, from my perspective, since the most fluent second language learners come out of immersion programs that begin in kindergarten, or earlier, the military will not have the foreign language personnel it needs until the states develop more foreign languages programs in the strategic languages needed.

 

We are not ready for the economic and strategic challenges of the 21^st century.

 

The NY Times (9/21/08) has an article by Will Bardenwerper titled  “For Military, Slow Progress in Foreign Language Push.” It begins:

Three years ago, the Defense Department set out to increase sharply the number of military personnel who speak strategically important languages. Progress has been slow, and the military has not determined how to reach its goal — or what exactly that goal is.

Figures from the department indicate that only 1.2 percent of the military receives a bonus paid to those who can speak languages judged to be of critical importance for the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other areas of strategic concern.

The military has struggled for years to develop a clear objective for language training.

In July, at a hearing of the House subcommittee charged with assessing the military’s progress in language training, the chairman, Representative Vic Snyder, Democrat of Arkansas, said: “I think the Pentagon has a sense that they’re moving in the right direction. I just don’t think they have a sense yet of what that endpoint is.”

John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is co-author of the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual, said in an interview that the military had been moving too slowly, and he questioned the military’s assertion that language needs were difficult to assess since they were subject to changing global security conditions.

The military by now should “have a pretty good idea of what countries we’re fighting in,” he said.

Dr. Nagl, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security, said the Army understood the value of having more foreign language speakers in its ranks. But, he said, it had not “done the math on what it means” and had yet to “build the programs and provide the leader development to get there.”  (more)

Urge Board of Education To Innovate

The Oregon Board of Education has fallen short. At their recent August retreat, they set their work priorities for 2008-09. They did not put expanding Mandarin programs or developing high school study abroad programs on their list. That’s their shame. I did put the issues before them. They did apparently adopt the following key focuses for next year: (minutes here) (1) Diploma Implementation, (2) Accelerations and Transitions, (3) Career and Technical Education, (4) Success for community college students, (5) Equity, and (6) Professional development. Now, these all seem like worthwhile efforts. But they are not the highest priorities, are not innovative, and are not strategic.

Tom Friedman in his recent column (9/7/08) “Georgia on My Mind” could just as well be thinking of the Oregon Board of Education in writing: (here)

What I found missing in both conventions was a sense of priorities. Both Barack Obama and John McCain offered a list of good things they plan to do as president, but, since you can’t do everything, where’s the focus going to be?

That focus needs to be on strengthening our capacity for innovation — our most important competitive advantage. If we can’t remain the most innovative country in the world, we are not going to have $1 billion to toss at either the country Georgia or the state of Georgia.

While we still have enormous innovative energy bubbling up from the American people, it is not being supported and nurtured as needed in today’s supercompetitive world. Right now, we feel like a country in a very slow decline — in infrastructure, basic research and education — just slow enough to lull us into thinking that we have all the time and money to play around in Tbilisi, Georgia, more than Atlanta, Georgia.

As Chuck Vest, the former president of M.I.T., said to me: “Both candidates have spoken a lot about ‘change,’ but in most areas of need, innovation is the only mechanism that can actually change things in substantive ways. Innovation is where creative thinking and practical know-how meet to do new things in new ways, and old things in new ways.

The Oregon Board of Education meets again this week (9/18-19/08). I urge them to look at themselves through Tom Friedman’s eyes. I urge them to see developing Mandarin programs not just as educational programs but as a high priority, strategic response to the rise of China, programs that could save lives by avoiding war. I urge them flex their innovation muscles to say that if we can send a high school students abroad to study for the cost or less of an in-district student, we should be doing it in large numbers. Be a model of innovation. Walk the talk. I urge them to rethink their priorities for next year. What they have is not good enough.

Contemporary Chinese Art, Ticket to Economic Development?

Mayor-elect Sam Adams blogging from China writes (here):

Portland uber creative guy, John C. Jay,  thinks Portland's Old Town/Chinatown can be the North American hot spot for Asian contemporary culture and art, i.e. a modern Chinatown.

Sam quotes from a NY Times article “A Hundred Galleries Bloom:” (here)

Contemporary Chinese art is as hot as Beijing in August, with works by Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun, Cai Guo-Qiang, Zhang Xiaogang and other Chinese artists fetching millions of dollars. Last year, China displaced France as the art world’s third-biggest auction market, after the United States and Britain.

 

So maybe contemporary Chinese art is Portland’s ticket to economic development. Here are samples of the four artist mentioned in the NY Times article:

 

Zeng Fanzhi:

 

"From the masses, To the masses," 1993

 

Zeng Fanzhi (wikipedia)

“Many Chinese artists have embraced American pop culture and fused it with social realism to develop their own artistic style of social and political commentaries on the fast changing Chinese society. Among the crowd, however, Zeng Fanzhi stands out for the introspective nature of his work, which often reflects his personal life and emotions."

 

"In an interview the artist pointed out that the ideological changes in China have clearly influenced him, but his work remains personal: "I've never been interested in my art becoming symbols of political ideas," he said." (slide show here)

 

Yue Minjun

 

“Execution”

 

Yue Minjun, (wikipedia) born 1962, is a contemporary Chinese artist based in Beijing. He is best known for oil paintings depicting himself in various settings, frozen in laughter. His piece “Execution” 'became the most expensive work ever by a Chinese contemporary artist, when sold in 2007 for £2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million) at London's Sotheby's.

 

Zhang Xiaogang

 

 

Zhang Xiaogang, (wikipedia) born 1958, is a contemporary Chinese symbolist and surrealist painter. He has made a Bloodline series of paintings, which are often monochromatic, stylized portraits of Chinese people, usually with large, dark-pupiled eyes, posed in a stiff manner deliberately reminiscent of family portraits from the 1950s and 60s.

 

Cai Guo-Qiang

 

The artist's installation "Inopportune: Stage One," made of nine suspended automobiles hangs from the ceiling of the Guggenheim (New York City).

 

Cai Guo-Qiang (wikipedia) “work is scholarly and often politically charged. Cai initially began working with gunpowder to foster spontaneity and confront the suppressive, controlled artistic tradition and social climate in China. While living in Japan from 1986 to 1995, Cai explored the properties of gunpowder in his drawings, an inquiry that eventually led to his experimentation with explosives on a massive scale and the development of his signature "explosion events," artistically choreographed shows incorporating fireworks and other pyrotechnics.”

Lents Park Photos

These are photos of Lents Park taken on a Sunday in September.  The Portland City Council will be considering a proposal to convert the park to a minor league baseball stadium. (see here for example)

BYD Auto looks at Oregon; Bring on the Green, Chinese Cars!

Chris Lydgate's article "Portland to electric car maker BYD Auto: Build your cars here. Please!" opens:

Political and business heavyweights are rolling out the green carpet in hopes of convincing a Chinese electric car manufacturer to set up shop in the Portland area.

Representatives from BYD Auto of Shenzhen have met with Gov. Ted Kulongoski, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, Mayor Tom Potter, Mayor-elect Sam Adams, and a host of other local dignitaries who are chasing a collective dream: to persuade the Chinese carmaker to make Portland its distribution hub, its North American headquarters or even – buckle your seatbelt – its U.S. manufacturing base.

“It’s still more a dream than a goal,” says Rick Snyder, CEO of EcoMotion, an electric-car dealer on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. “At first blush, it seems like we’re a long way from Detroit. But we do have some manufacturing expertise – we should really jump on this opportunity.”

“The potential is there,” agrees Jin Lan, a China business consultant based in Vancouver, Wash., who was instrumental in bringing the two sides together. “Oregon has a very good name in China in regard to sustainability. This would be a natural fit.” (more)

I like this. My two priority strategic issues in one package: building the China connection and getting off of gasoline for transportation. But I do wonder: what if, in addition to our sustainability efforts in Oregon, the 2007 legislature had allocated $6 million to Oregon's K-12 public schools for the development of Mandarin and study abroad in China programs, would BYD Auto now be looking differently at the potential of our state? Would our interest in building connections with China give us a competitive advantage? Or what if Oregon already had 5% of its public school students graduating fluent in Mandarin, plus hundreds of high school students studying in China each year? What would that tell the Chinese?

WW: Clueless on China

Corey Pein of Willamette Week has an article “Brighter Lights, Bigger Cities: What’s Sam Adams Doing for 11 days In China.” (see here) Don’t ask me what he’s trying to get across in the article. Maybe that’s it a little hip to bash China lightly and to assume anyone a politician meets with must be sleazy. Plus China’s taking our jobs and should just go away. Those seem to be the themes.

 

I think I missed the humor. His themes are neither funny nor useful. China’s a serious topic – lots of good and bad, but definitely a big part of our future.

 

Pein did write the article. That’s good. That’s important. We all need to learn more about China. I’m glad he put it in the paper. But Pein does not mention how important China is, now, and more so in the future. There is nothing about the forecast that China’s economy will be as big as the US economy in 2035 and double in 2050, so maybe it makes sense for Sam Adams to develop trade ties. Nothing about the imperative to wean China off conventional coals plants for generating electricity or we will all burn up in global warming, so maybe Oregon could help, while making money, with some of its sustainability ideas.

 

From Pein: Nothing serious. No gravitas. No sense of the profound issues at stake. No sense of the historic shifting of economic and geo-political power to Asia. No sense that Adams just might be there doing something important. Just mild sarcasm and sneering. Pity.

 

I’ve already commented on Adam’s trip (here) and his blog can be found (here).

 

Both Adams and Pein mention interesting organizations and people. I have compiled the following links about them (as they appear in Pein article):

APCO Worldwide is a global communication firm (I think that probably means lobbying) here.

The Economic Policy Institute’s paper “The China Toll” is here.

National Committee on United States-China Relations is here. Kissinger is just one of many on the Board of Directors. Many Democrats serve as well.

George Gilboy Foreign Policy paper “The Myth Behind China’s Miracle” is here.

Vice Minister Pan Yue of the China Environmental Protection Agency has a wikipedia entry here.

Beijing Development and Reform Commission is here.

Beijing Vice Mayor Chen Gang is here

Ma Jun’s wikipedia entry is here.

Shanghai Sustainable Transport Partnership is here.

Dongtan Project is here, with Wired magazine article here.

Vincent Lo’s wikipedia entry is here. Info on Xintiandi is here.

Wieden and Kennedy Shanghai is here. 

The Chinese auto company BYD is considering locating part of its operations in Oregon. The Portland Tribune article is here.

PSU’s $25 Million Grant for Sustainability: Great! Think Big, Think International, Think China

The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation has awarded Portland State University a challenge grant of $25 million to expand research and programs in sustainability across all programs. PSU needs to match the $25 million over the next ten years. It is the largest gift in the history of Portland State University and perhaps the largest single gift to sustainability in U.S. higher education history (see here for PSU's announcement and more info, and here for Oregonian editorial).

 

This is great news for PSU, for Portland, and for Oregon. But, as PSU thinks through how to spend the funds over the next years, I would urge them to think big. Spend part of the money attacking the world’s number one sustainability challenge –  China’s coal program.

 

Consider what Michael Klare, author of "Rising Power, Shrinking Planet” (here) said on NPR:

This is the great challenge for the entire planet. China does have one source of energy in abundance, and that is coal. China is the world’s leading user of coal. And it intends to use much more coal in the future. By the year 2030, it is expected that China will use half of the world’s coal. And unfortunately China intends to use a kind of primitive, by modern standards, coal burning facilities to generate electricity. And, if this continues to be the case, we are all hostage on the planet to China's coal use, because this will be the leading source of green house gas, carbon dioxide producing emissions. And there will be no hope of averting the worse global climate change disasters. So, we have all got to work with China. This is really a catastrophic phenomenon. We have got to work with China to either abandon its reliance on coal or to adopt more modern, less carbon dioxide emitting coal facilities….

We use to think of national security as meaning building up nuclear weapons for a possible war with China. We have to think of our national security as working with China not to burn coal at the rate they are doing because our survival on the planet is at risk from this. If we grasp reality, we will understand the necessity of cooperating with China in developing energy alternatives. It is a matter of survival.

Klare is right.

So, PSU, please take a part of that grant, and put it toward this big problem – what should China do and how can we get them to do it? Think big, think international, think China! Play in the big league!