ISU Bengal

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Cody Fowers Thomas Gold addresses the audience.

The 37th annual Frank Church Symposium held Feb. 27-29 at ISU featured international affairs experts focusing on the topic of China's prospects in the twenty first century. Many speakers focused on broad topics, such as human rights and China's political and governmental transition that at first seemed unrelated to smaller communities. Thomas B. Gold, Ph.D., keynote speaker for the symposium, emphasized, however, that the rapidly changing nature of China effects even small communities in numerous ways.

"We have this blind spot in recognizing how globalization affects us," Gold said. "Rural communities are affected through products you buy, jobs you gain or lose, and even pollution that blows over."

Gold cited examples such as Wal-Mart reselling hundreds of different products made in China, and how the smog density in coastal California cities is partly due to drifting pollution that originates in China.

Richard H. Foster, professor of International Studies and Political Science at ISU, who also has one of the symposium lectures named in his honor, said that China's growth has even affected ISU directly.

"The Rendezvous Center, for example, had to be put off a year because China was buying up most of the world's steel," Foster said. "So it does have an impact on us locally."

In addition, Foster said, China's growth has in a way helped every U.S. citizen financially.

"China holds a sizable portion of our national debt, which essentially subsidizes the U.S.," Foster said. "I seen studies that estimate every Chinese family subsidizes every U.S. family to the tune of $4,000 a year."

Economics is not the only area that China has affected local communities, however. While many experts have talked extensively about the "Americanization" of the world's cultures due to globalization, China's effect on world culture is sometimes ignored, Gold said.

"China's having a huge impact even on popular culture," Gold said. "Take anime or martial arts, or any number of other examples. These things affect how you see the world."

Gold said that events such as the Frank Church Symposium are significant because they help people to realize how countries all over the world can have an impact locally, and help dispel misconceptions that people may have about other countries.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools