China Is Just Three Miles Away
Yinuo Li
This is an edited version of one of my “Get Smart on China” emails sent to colleagues on July 15th 2015. Phil Nelson also contributed to this Article.
How far away is China? If you are reading this in Seattle then China probably feels a world away. Well, forget the 5,396 miles that separate Beijing from Seattle, and ignore the trifling matter of the 15 hour time difference. If you’re in Seattle right now, China’s really not that far from you…
As any good Seattleite knows, the Emerald City has a long-established Chinese community with a rich history. It’s true that relationships between Seattle’s Chinese immigrants and other sections of the population haven’t always been harmonious but the Chinese have long been an important part in the development of one of America’s most beautiful cities. Probably Seattle’s most famous Chinese adopted son is Bruce Lee, who studied at the University of Washington (UW — he didn’t do particularly well academically, but that didn’t exactly hold him back) and started teaching martial arts there. In fact Seattle’s Chinatown has the honor of being home to the world’s only Bruce Lee exhibition outside of Hong Kong (you can visit it at the Wing Luke Museum). But the story of the Chinese in Seattle isn’t just about nunchucks and yellow jumpsuits — it gets much more interesting!
Seattle has long been a prime destination for Chinese students following in Lee’s footsteps and going to the US to study. In 2014 UW had 3,845 Chinese students and this number is rising steadily. Thousands of highly-skilled Chinese people have also chosen to come and work in Seattle, particularly in the tech industry, the Silicon Valley of the northeast. But the trend seems to be shifting; now it’s not just individual Chinese coming to make Seattle their home, but also whole corporations and institutions from China. It looks like Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant founded by Jack Ma (mentioned in the previous issue), is planning to establish its US headquarters in Seattle, while attracting talent from other similar companies and paying much less rent than it would in the Bay Area.
Another Chinese giant that is putting down roots in Seattle is Tsinghua University. Along with its main “rival”, Peking University, Tsinghua (pronounced Chinghwa) is one of the two top universities in China and commands an enormous level of prestige, having educated elites in every field. With $40 million in foundational support from Microsoft, Tsinghua is partnering with UW in an exciting venture to create the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), an institute dedicated to educating the next generation of innovators. The idea is for students, faculty staff, professionals and entrepreneurs from around the world to collaborate on real-world technology and design projects. This is the first time a Chinese research university has established a physical presence in the United States and the choice of Seattle as its home is telling. GIX will open in the fall of 2016 with an inaugural master’s degree in technology innovation, and its campus will be just three miles away from the Gates Foundation; given the strong partnership that has developed between the foundation and Tsinghua in driving innovation forward, it seems fitting that the two institutions should also be so physically close.
Tsinghua has had strong links with the US ever since its founding. At the heart of its campus there is a small park called Shuimutsinghua; it’s a haven of quiet that feels a long way from the bustle and traffic jams of Beijing. Bright, young minds sit and read by the lake or stroll together through the trees. By the ornate pavilion, with its curved roof and solid timber pillars, the branches of the willow trees reach lazily down to dip their leaves in the still waters of the lotus pond. Walking through such tranquil surroundings, it is hard to imagine that the university’s beginnings lie in violent uprising and the deaths of many people in China, little over a hundred years ago.
As the 19th century drew to a close, China was in turmoil. The imperial Qing (pronounced Ching) Dynasty, once a mighty line of formidable emperors, had deteriorated into an unstable and weak regime that could not ensure China’s integrity against circling colonial powers, who were determined to carve out chunks of Chinese territory for themselves. Against this backdrop, in 1899 there arose an anti-imperialist, pro-government movement called the Fists of Righteousness and Harmony (trust me, it sounds more catchy in Chinese), which became known in English simply as the Boxers. This peasant-based uprising quickly spread, murdering foreign missionaries and large numbers of Chinese Christians in northern China. The Boxers then converged on Beijing and, with the support of the national army, besieged the Foreign Legation Quarter, where most foreigners lived. The foreigners were only saved by an allied force from eight countries, including the United States, which marched on Beijing, defeated the Chinese army and brought an end to the uprising, before looting and pillaging the city. In 1901 the Qing government was forced to sign the Boxer Protocol, which demanded that China pay huge indemnities to the foreign powers (around $335 million in total at the time).
Fortunately, something positive was to come out of all this; it was decided that the indemnity China was paying to the US was excessive and the amount was reduced by $10.8 million. This money was to be returned to China on condition that it be used to establish a scholarship for Chinese students to study in the United States. So it was in 1911, during the very last days of the Qing Dynasty, that Tsinghua Imperial College was founded, as a preparatory school for students who were to be sent by the government to study in America. The site chosen for the school was the garden of an 18th century prince, attached to the imperial Summer Palace. It was called Tsinghua Garden, and included the beautiful Shuimutsinghua that still survives at the heart of the modern university. Both these names come from the work of a 4th century poet called Xie Hun; literally, Shuimutsinghua describes the crystal clear water and verdant vegetation of a garden that Xie Hun enjoyed 1,600 years ago, and Tsinghua simply means “clear and verdant”. Later in the same year that the school was founded, a revolution brought down the Qing dynasty and removed China’s last emperor, the six-year-old Puyi, from the throne, ending more than 2,000 years of continuous imperial rule. Over the next 20 years, the small preparatory school grew into the university that we see today, keeping its ancient, poetic name.
In its early years, Tsinghua focused primarily on teaching the humanities, particularly literature, history and philosophy, and counted among its professors several of the period’s most illustrious literary and academic superstars, including Wang Guowei, a renowned scholar, writer and poet, who was a pioneer in the development of Chinese literary criticism. In 1952, three years after the founding of the People’s Republic, Tsinghua underwent a major change of direction, becoming a polytechnic university specializing in training engineers. It was after this shift that it educated some of the most powerful people in China today. Xi Jinping, the current President of China studied chemical engineering there, as did Vice Premier Liu Yandong, the highest-ranking female political figure in China. Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, is also a Tsinghua engineering alumnus. Nowadays, although engineering is still the university’s core strength, it has expanded into many disciplines, ranging from medicine and fine art to philanthropy studies.
The 19th century marked the beginning of a dark period in China’s history, when the country fell from being a great “central empire” (the literal meaning of the Chinese word for China), generating more than a third of the world’s GDP, to a crumbling, barely-functioning state at the mercy of various western colonial powers. In today’s Beijing you can still see ruins from this period, the most famous being Yuanming Yuan, an imperial summer palace and architectural masterpiece, which was looted and burned by British and French troops in 1860; even today, some of the most expensive pieces of Chinese art circulating on the international art market are imperial treasures stolen by western soldiers.
Hopes for a new beginning with the 1911 revolution were crushed by civil war, which lasted from 1927 right through to 1949, interrupted by eight years of Japanese invasion and occupation between 1937 and 1945. It is estimated that 27 million people died during this time.
After 1949 there were many more trials to come, including the Great Chinese Famine that killed up to 45 million people in the late 1950s and early 60s and the Cultural Revolution, which lasted for 10 years, starting in 1967. During this 30 year period, China remained largely in political isolation from the rest of the world. Only after 1978 did the country embark on a journey of development and growth, putting China back on the path to becoming an economic power.
Understanding this broader historical context is important for our work in China. Chinese people (and their government) often experience conflicting emotions: pride in their long history and past glories, and a strong sense of self-criticism after so many man-made disasters domestically — the famine and the Cultural Revolution are just two examples of this. Memories of shame and humiliation associated with the west (with around 100 years of colonization and invasion by foreign powers), and eagerness to learn from the west and wanting a seat at the table. A sense of being a good student, humble and open to learning, and a desire to define a path of its own, just as many of China’s paths have indeed been trodden out of uniquely Chinese constraints e.g. the barefoot doctor system that has proven to be highly effective as a public health model and the agricultural development model, allowing China to feed 23% of the world’s population with just 7% of its arable land.
Sometimes these conflicts are subtle, sometimes they are pronounced. But no matter how they manifest themselves, having awareness and sensitivity towards this historical, cultural and political context will make us all more effective in engaging with China in our work.
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edited by: Joanne Zeng
