TILIP symposium addresses China's struggles for change

In what was the culmination of nearly a year of cross-continental programming and education, over 40 academics and policy makers from around the world converged on Tufts' campus this weekend to participate in a symposium on China.

The symposium, "China in Transition: Development, Urbanization, Migration, and Political Change," consisted of 11 panels and was organized by participants of the Tufts Institute for Leadership and International Perspective (TILIP).

Now in its fifth year, TILIP is a joint effort of the Tufts Institute for Global Leadership, Peking University, The University of Hong Kong, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This year's program was planned by the 26 TILIP students: the 13 from Tufts who visited China last summer, and 13 from the other three universities.

Panels made up of professors and policy makers addressed the country's development from many different perspectives. The panel on "Sustainable Development: The Three Gorges Project and Beyond" presented differing views on the environmental and human impact of the project, which, when it is completed in 2009, will be the world's largest dam.

The dam, on the Yangtze River, will generate electricity, ease navigation for large ships on the river, and control the flooding common to the region. However, the construction of the 360 mile-long, 610 ft.-deep reservoir is expected to displace over one million people.

With a price tag of $24 billion, the Three Gorges Dam is "the only project in the world that's costs exceed the Big Dig," quipped William Moomaw, a professor of international environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the director of the Tufts Institute of the Environment.

When Tufts students were in China, they visited the dam construction site during a five-day cruise up the Yangtze River.

The Friday evening program, "China's Future in the Balance: The Impact of Inequity," addressed the impacts of the growing disparity between rich and poor in China.

According to Joan Kaufman, a panelist and the director of the AIDS Public Policy Training Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "the poor have less access to information and services." Therefore, Kaufman said, "HIV is concentrated in poor, minority regions near drug trafficking routes."

Poor women in rural China often have gynecological infections that would be easily treatable with access to proper facilities, Kaufman said. This makes these women "sitting ducks for HIV infection," she said. However, Kaufman is optimistic that the Chinese government can apply anti-infection strategies. "If China can do Falun Gong, they can do AIDS," Kaufman said.

At the "Building Megacities: The Promise and Peril of China's Urban Plan" panel, TILIP students described the two research projects they conducted _ "Information and Communication Technologies in Hong Kong and Shanghai: A Comparative Study" and "The Impact of Special Technological Zones in Major East Asian Cities" _ that will be submitted to the World Bank Development Economics Research Group.

Last May, the Chinese and American students began communicating with each other through an online message board. The group then assembled in Hong Kong in July.

Following a three-day Outward Bound experience, each student was paired with a Chinese student to participate in six-week internships in Hong Kong in organizations that ranged from shipping companies to the Tourism Commission.

During their time in Hong Kong, the students also attended various lectures, went on tours and day trips, and conducted case studies comparing Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Xi'an.

They also went on a two-week tour of mainland China. In Xi'an, the group toured both the city and its surrounding villages, in addition to visiting schools in high-tech zones, museums, and historical sites.

Beijing, the Chinese capital, was the group's final destination. There, the students attended lectures on the history and current politics of US-China relations by Peking University professors. The group also visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Zhong Guan Cun Science Park before they returned to the US in September.

Since the summer, the students have been communicating through e-mail and video-conferences to plan the symposium.

The Chinese students arrived in the US on Jan. 28, and they attended lectures and took tours at the United Nations, CBS News, and the US Military Academy at West Point in New York, and at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the Big Dig, and Harvard University in Boston.

The symposium was the last stop in the US for the Chinese students before they return home on Wednesday.