This column again nails China economic and political reality. I spent years teaching and lecturing all over that country about international trade and business law issues, helping many of my students further their educations here. I had hopes the so-called conventional wisdom would prevail, and saw preliminary signs that it might. However, within a year after Xi took power I knew that it likely wouldn't and I have now quit China altogether. The saddest part of all this is that China's best and brightest students are no longer coming here to study, and where they are going will not help them very much in life. My former Chinese law and MBA students are now working all over the US, generally with permanent U.S. residence or citizenship. Most will never go back to China to live. The same thing happened with the 4,000 or so Chinese law and graduate students who were here after Tiananmen Square, many of whom I met while I lobbied as one of their Washington lawyers for their right to stay here. Relatively few ever did go home, although most who remained here developed successful professional and business careers linked at least partly to China. Those who did go back after long stays here are among the relatively few progressive thinkers with nowhere to speak. We somehow need to keep the Chinese students coming to the U.S. because once they get here, many welcome the freedoms they enjoy and freedom is contagious when enough people catch it. It certainly will spread neither far nor fast in Xi's China.
This column again nails China economic and political reality. I spent years teaching and lecturing all over that country about international trade and business law issues, helping many of my students further their educations here. I had hopes the so-called conventional wisdom would prevail, and saw preliminary signs that it might. However, within a year after Xi took power I knew that it likely wouldn't and I have now quit China altogether. The saddest part of all this is that China's best and brightest students are no longer coming here to study, and where they are going will not help them very much in life. My former Chinese law and MBA students are now working all over the US, generally with permanent U.S. residence or citizenship. Most will never go back to China to live. The same thing happened with the 4,000 or so Chinese law and graduate students who were here after Tiananmen Square, many of whom I met while I lobbied as one of their Washington lawyers for their right to stay here. Relatively few ever did go home, although most who remained here developed successful professional and business careers linked at least partly to China. Those who did go back after long stays here are among the relatively few progressive thinkers with nowhere to speak. We somehow need to keep the Chinese students coming to the U.S. because once they get here, many welcome the freedoms they enjoy and freedom is contagious when enough people catch it. It certainly will spread neither far nor fast in Xi's China.