Clayton Dube, executive director of the USC US-China Institute at the Annenberg School, was the purveyor of that message during a meeting of the US-China Friendship Association Long Beach chapter on Saturday, March 26.
The Association met that day for a luncheon at Forbidden City restaurant in Long Beach, and Dube’s lecture was the focus of the event.
He began his talk with a description of the Institute, which he said the current president of USC— Max Nikias— created to specifically focus on the US-China relationship.
“There are think tanks who do some of this, and… basically every university has some kind of China program, or at least it should,” Dube said. “But what makes our program unique— different from a think tank— is no think tank has a film school, no think tank has a school of medicine, no think tank has a program in public health. And so, we have people working on how China matters in all these different areas.”
Dube said the USC UC-China Institute is also different from most university programs in that it focuses on contemporary China and it particularly emphasizes the relationship between the two countries. He stressed that this relationship is not only important to the US and China, but to the entire world. He made the point by stating that the two countries account for one-third of the global gross domestic product— about one-fourth of global trade involves the two countries. He said that the US and China together constitute about one-fourth of the world’s population, but most of that number derives from the latter.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Screen-Shot-2016-04-01-at-9.53.46-AM.png” credit=”Photo by Susan Holsclaw” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Members of the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association listen to a lecture given by Clayton Dube, executive director of the USC US-China Institute at the Annenberg School, at Forbidden City restaurant on March 26. Pictured, from far left, are: Hazel Wallace, program coordinator for the Association; Richard Yu, vice president of the Association; and John Jung, author of multiple books on Chinese-American people.” captionposition=”right”] “In terms of changing the climate, for the people of the world, and for our children, grandchildren, our two countries are doing way more than our share,” Dube said. “About 44 percent of all the world’s greenhouse gases are produced by our two countries.” He added that China has far surpassed the US in its negative environmental impacts.
Another similarity Dube pointed out is that the two nations spend more on militaries than any other country— comprising about half of all military expenditures worldwide.
“So, our two countries have a disproportionate impact on the world,” he said. “That’s why we’ve created this US-China Institute— to try to address those issues and to increase American understanding.”
Using chéngyÇ”, or Chinese idioms, as a framework, Dube’s speech highlighted how economic issues are connected to political concerns, other issues between the US and China, and between China, its people, and neighbors near and far.
One idiom he cited originated in India, he said, and it refers to the notion of “trying to get a sense of something big with incomplete information,” such as blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is.
“I want to emphasize that, in fact, if you are blind, that doesn’t mean that you are limited any more than anyone else is. We use this expression because all of us have incomplete information,” Dube said. “So, trying to describe a place as big, as complex, as diverse as China is going to be difficult because none of us has perfect information.”
He cited headlines from US media that warned of China’s sluggish economy dragging the world down with it and a Chinese stock-market crash affecting American economy.
“So, people are still concerned about the health of the Chinese economy— because the Chinese economy is so much more completely integrated into the world economy— [and] the impact that it will have on other countries, including our own,” he said.
Part of the reason people are worried about China, Dube said, is that labor costs in that country are rising.
Hazel Wallace, who serves as the program coordinator for the Long Beach chapter of the US-China Friendship Association, told the Signal Tribune this week that, after previously listening to Dube speak on this topic, she invited him to share his vast knowledge with her group.
“I think he is a knowledgable, dynamic speaker on US-China relationships,” Wallace said. “He enthralls everyone. I looked around the room [Saturday], and all the faces were focused on him, listening to him. He is so knowledgeable about what is going on, and I think he presents both sides.”
Dube will be joined by numerous other speakers when his institute hosts a day-long discussion entitled “China’s Growing Pains” on Friday, April 22 from 9am to 5pm at the Radisson Hotel at USC. For more information about the event, visit china.usc.edu .
