The symposium "Asia's Rising Giants: China and India" began yesterday evening with a panel entitled "Empire as Culture", featuring three scholars: Dr. Sami Al-Faraj, Dr. Orville Schell and Dr. Alan Wachman.
Sponsored by the Institute for Global Leadership's (IGL) Tufts Initiative for Leadership and International Perspective (TILIP), the event will continue through Sunday.
The symposium's first panel, moderated by seniors and TILIP participants Tara Dhawan and Tamara Chao, discussed the role of trade, empire and soft power in the global arena.
The first presentation was given by Fletcher graduate Dr. Sami Al-Faraj, the director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. The title of his talk was "The Silk Road Strategy." In his PowerPoint presentation, he outlined the history of the relationship between Kuwait and China through the Silk Road, an ancient trade route that linked East Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Al-Faraj discussed the culture of China, India and Kuwait by showing slides of art that had traveled across distant regions of Asia. He explained that Kuwait had little to offer during the ancient times of the Silk Road. However, with its current supply of oil, the country now wants to reopen a modern version of the Silk Road. This goal would manifest itself through the construction of Madinat al-Hareer (City of Silk).
This city would serve as a new link, particularly to China, with the goal of increased trade and security.
Second to speak was Dr. Orville Schell, the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Before he gave his lecture, Schell was awarded the IGL's Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award for his investigative journalism.
During his presentation, Schell included a brief overview of the social and political structures of China from before 1949, when the communist People's Republic of China was founded, to the present.
Having moved from communism to "mercantile-capitalism," China is now "the fountainhead and exemplar of everything they used to oppose," he said.
Specifically, China has been investing heavily in Africa recently. Late last month and into early February, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the continent in an attempt to foster a relationship that will provide China with access to natural resources.
At the end of January, Hu agreed to forgive the debt owed by 33 African countries "as part of a multi-billion dollar pledge made last year to help fast-track the continent's development," according to the Agence France-Presse.
Schell summed up China's current stance: "Folks, we're here to do business, not to judge you," he said.
In addition, Schell discussed China's soft power in popular culture through basketball player Yao Ming, the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) and Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian, but explained that none of them are directly part of China.
Although China has performed far better than he expected since the crisis at Tiananmen Square in 1989, he said that there is work that remains to be done. "There are still a lot of contradictions in this model yet to be worked out," he said.
The third and final presenter was Dr. Alan Wachman, an associate professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
He began by provoking the audience with questions about the meaning of the title "Empire as Culture." While Schell acknowledged the potential of Chinese "soft power," Wachman offered a different viewpoint. "This may be terribly provocative ... I reject there is Chinese soft power." He followed this by saying, "[Soft power is] attraction which leads to persuasion ... what values does China influence abroad?"
The presentations were followed by a question and answer session. The audience asked more questions about "soft power" and also about where the United States fits in the picture.
Reaction to the event appeared positive. "The symposium was very insightful and I agree very much with what the speakers had to say," Eric Li, a TILIP participant visiting from Hong Kong University, said.
