TEXT | Wang Huiyao in Dialogue with Harvard Prof. William Kirby
August 02 , 2023
On August 2, 2023, Wang Huiyao, President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), engaged in an in-depth dialogue with Professor William Kirby of Harvard University.
In 2022, William Kirby, former Dean of Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, former Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and Chair of the Harvard China Fund, looked back at two centuries of higher education in his book “Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China”.
On August 2, 2023, Wang Huiyao, President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), engaged in an in-depth dialogue with Professor William Kirby of Harvard University. They not only examined the evolution of higher education systems in China, the United States, and Europe, but also explored pathways to enhance national global influence. The following is the full text of the dialogue:
Huiyao Wang:
Good morning everybody. And also good morning Prof. William Kirby.
William Kirby:
Good morning. Good morning everyone.
Huiyao Wang:
So it’s really a great pleasure for me to host this CCG special dialogue. My name is Henry Huiyao Wang. I’m the president and founder of the Center for China and Globalization. CCG special dialogue is actually conducted for the last three years with over 40 or 50 very well-known global opinion leaders. And here today we are at the Harvard campus, at the Widener Library, and also at heart of Harvard campus. So welcome to this special dialogue program. And we are thrilled today to have a dialogue with Professor William Kirby. And William Kirby is a T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. And he is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He serves as Chairman of the Harvard China Fund, the University’s academic venture fund for China, and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai, Harvard’s first University-wide center located outside the United States. So this is really a very great achievement. And also, he is the former dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. And has published and been quoted in many distinguished, well-known journals, papers, many books and many case studies. The list is very long.
So just to open this dialogue, because we have done quite a few dialogues with our Harvard distinguished professors, including Prof. Larry Summers, Prof. Joseph Nye, and Prof. Graham Allison, and just to mention few. So this time, we want to engage a dialogue with Bill. You’ve been engaged with Harvard Business School for a long time. You’ve been in various leading positions. I remember I was here 2011 as a senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. You were looking after the Fairbank Center. So we had a chance to talk then. But of course, in the last 13 or 14 years, many things have changed. And you work is on the China business, economic and political developing in the international context. Particularly, you just came back from China. You talked to me just now, and then you have been teaching on doing business in China, and quite a number of courses at Harvard business school. I want to give an overview of the global situation. But I really want to talk a bit more on this great book you recently published. It’s Empire of Ideas: Creating the Modern University From Germany to America to China, which is published by Harvard University Press. So perhaps you can give some opening remark, but also especially your latest new book. We really would like to introduce to our audience, both in China and outside China.
William Kirby:
Thank you very much, Henry. It’s a pleasure to have you back here at Harvard. We look forward to having you early and often in the future. So this book is an outgrowth both of my longstanding interest in China and China’s development in an international context over the past several centuries but also comes from my own experiences as dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences here at Harvard, which is about half of Harvard University, that school, the faculty of Arts and Sciences.
And it asks the question, a very simple question. The Germans defined the modern research university in the 19th century. You know, universities are more than a millennium old in the West, but the modern research university, a place like Harvard, or a place like Tsinghua or Fudan, this model of a university is only about 233 years old this year, founded in Berlin in 1810, and it becomes the model of all modern universities throughout the world. The Germans defined excellence in the 19th century. The Americans arguably took it to another level by the end of the 20th century. And the question I am asking is whether or not Chinese universities will define global standards in the 21st century. So in education, as in other areas, is the 21st century to be the Chinese century? And so it’s a series of case studies of individual universities, German, American, and Chinese, as well as a broad overview of higher education in an area of enormous cooperation and competition right now, in particular across the Pacific.
I’m just back from China. My mission in this last trip to China was to reengage our academic partners in China, knowing that any great university — I think here at Harvard, we’re not a bad one — that any great university has to engage with the fastest growing system of higher education in the world in quality as well as quantity, and that is, of course, the system in China. So I met with my counterparts and with the leaders of a number of great universities, 北大 (Peking University), 清华 (Tsinghua University) and 复旦 (Fudan University) and others also in Hong Kong, to get a sense of, after three years of COVID and after this serious downturn in US-China relations, how do we reset our partnerships for the mutual benefit of our faculty and our students, and indeed, of both of our countries?
Huiyao Wang:
Thank you. That’s really fascinating. I think that you are probably the most authoritative and also a highly relevant person, an expert, to also talk about this education, and of course the origin of modern university. In your book, you talk about universities, how they started first in Germany. And I know that you also speak German, French and many European languages. And then of course, Harvard itself, how they moved to the US, and how the Harvard campus we see now here, it’s been filled with visitors on a regular basis. So you can see, it’s become the capital of knowledge probably, for many universities to model on, on the Harvard model. But again, also, Chinese universities are really rising, even though they have a relatively shorter history. But if you talk about ancient times, China always had some kind of a study, scholars, academy, like Yuelu Shuyuan (Yuelu Academy). But I think the modern university, it’s true, that it has been the driving force of technology, science, innovation, and of course, leading hubs for R&D. So what do you think of the differences, as that you are the expert of this book, that the European universities, American university, and Chinese universities, we are now probably the three public leading forces for the future. What are your comparison, findings, and some of the ideas?
William Kirby:
But the reason, let me take a step back, the reason I call the book Empires of Ideas, 思想之帝国, I think of it in Chinese. What makes a country great? What makes a country enduringly great? Is it the size of the economy? That’s important. Is it the size of an army or a navy? That may be important. But the greatest, the countries that upset global standards in multiple ways over the last several centuries, have also been leaders in culture and ideas. You look at the 大清国 (Qing Dynasty) in the 18th century in Asia, or you look at France in the 18th century in Europe, or in the 19th century, Britain and Germany becoming global powers, but also by the strength of their ideas, and particularly in the German case, the power of their universities. And in the United States, this country has become the greatest center of higher education in the world for the moment, in part because we attract talent from all over the world, in our students and in our faculty, in particular. And if we were not open to this talent from all over the world, and if that talent did not wish to come here, we would not be doing so well today.
And right outside we are meeting today in Widener Library, the largest university library in the United States, and right outside this library is a stele, a 石碑 that was given by the Chinese alumni of Harvard University in 1936, on the 300th anniversary of Harvard. You know, Harvard is much older as a university than it is as a research unit. So we were founded in the Ming Dynasty, although nobody at Harvard knew that. But in 1936, this stele was dedicated by the representative of Peking University, 北京大学, Dr. Hu Shi. Hu Shi came to Harvard and was given an honorary degree as the representative of 北大 (Peking University) at our 300th anniversary. And he inscribes that stele with a message that it is learning, not the power of politics. He doesn’t say he does not make a country great, but he says, above all, a culture grows, and a nation goes strong by attention to its culture. But a culture can become enduringly strong only by attention to learning. By 学, in Chinese, as he put it, and we, I can show you this afterward, or Wissenschaft, as you would say in the German case, the idea of learning as science. And this is what has really propelled countries to the forefront of global influence over the course of the last several centuries. So in investment in education, no country knows this better in its long history than China. An investment in education is the surest investment one can have for the future of one’s country.
Huiyao Wang:
So great, Bill. You mentioned all those differences, and also probably the core competence of a modern university, I think you have struck me, and then you really pick up some of the keyword, the talent. A university has to attract talent from all over the world. I think Harvard probably is the best example, and also many universities in the US and other countries. So this is something probably we can learn from, you’ve been the dean of Arts and Humanitarians for a long time at Harvard, you are very knowledgeable about the core competence, how the university is run, and what are the key competences, of course, it’s talent. So in that sense, I think probably Harvard has a very high percentage of international faculties or people from different parts of the world. Maybe you can give a little bit introduction there, because we are at Harvard, sitting in the largest library of the US campus, probably.
William Kirby:
So this is actually very relevant to the current situation in US-China relations. For COVID and for other political reasons, the flow of talent across the Pacific has been somewhat interrupted. But a great university has to be a place where you attract talent from around the world. China has the great advantage of having not just this enormous and talented population at home, but the Chinese diaspora, which can come back and succeed in China, but also by welcoming international scholars as well. Sometimes the Chinese government is criticized, I think, wrongly, for its “Thousand Talents Program”. But when I was Dean of the faculty of arts and Sciences, I had a thousand talents program as well. I would steal faculty from anywhere. The job is to bring the absolute best students and faculty together. That’s the most important job of a dean’s appointment of senior scholars who can teach the extraordinary people who were fortunate enough to bring to this university. And it’s important that we be open to the world in order to do that.
And, you know, when you think of why this matters, not everything keeps going up. Americans are doing well in higher education today, but there are many warning signs in the American higher education system, particularly in the funding and the decreasing funding of public higher education in the United States. But the Germans defined higher education for more than a century, from 1810 until about the early 1930s, and the influence was so broad, you know, Harvard around since the mid-Ming Dynasty, but it became a serious research university only by emulating the German model with the founding of our graduate school of Arts and Sciences in the 1870s. And other American universities all followed this model. You’ve been to Stanford University, probably? Do you know what the motto of Stanford University is?
Huiyao Wang:
Well, I think they do a lot with innovation, with startups.
William Kirby:
They do today, but that’s not what their original model. Still, their motto today is “Die Luft der Freiheit weht”. It’s in German. So most people at Stanford don’t know how to pronounce it. It means the wind of freedom blows. And so they are also modeled from their founding on a German experience in higher education.
But this is how things declined, too. The wind of freedom stopped blowing in Germany with the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933. The Great University of Berlin, the model for all modern universities, is destroyed from within by the Nazis, and then from without by World War II. Today, every university wants to know where it stands in the global rankings. But if we had global rankings a hundred years ago of the kind that we have today, probably eight of the top ten universities in the world would have been German universities, and the other two in Oxford and Cambridge. No American universities. But today, very seldom does a German university get into the top 50, whereas five Chinese universities are now, have risen into the top 50 in many of these, many of these ranks. So it shows you that the world changes and it can change very fast indeed.
Huiyao Wang:
So that’s great. That’s good to know the evolution of this modern university system, and how that actually, from Europe to America, now China. So higher education is one of the few industries in which the United States is still the number one. When you count in the top 50 or top 100, most of the universities are from the US. So how long do you think that leading position US can maintain, but you mentioned some of the problems of funding and things like that. I know universities in China also have challenges, they produce a large number of graduates, like 12 million a year. But youth unemployment is now about almost 20%. So what do you think about the dominance of the university in the US? I think that’s probably one of the core competencies, because the US is attracting talents from all over the world, and most of the Nobel laureates work in the United States. And if the US universities keep such a strong position, then they are automatically attracting talents — we’re giving the best immigration policy. So what do you think of universities in Europe, and particularly in China, can improve, and how we can really in the future, leading together, or develop together? And how can we learn from each other?
William Kirby:
I would say that in my book, the case study that is the biggest warning sign for the American university system is the University of California at Berkeley. It is just one example of the slow-motion defunding of public higher education in the United States over the last several decades. Today, 44 out of 50 American states are spending less per student on higher education than they did in real terms in 2008. 44 out of 50 states. So that’s where 80% of American students get their education, it’s in public universities. And if these great institutions, Berkeley, Michigan, University of Washington, and the University of Illinois, these great public institutions decline, I can guarantee that the great private institutions, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, we will also decline, because we compete for the same faculty, the same graduate students, same senior administrators. And competition in education, like in any business, is the key to excellence, and without it, you actually will decline. So this is a big warning sign for the United States.
I don’t believe, you know, I’m not one who believes that one country has to win and another one has to lose in any competition, whether it’s in business, whether it’s in semiconductors, or in higher education. No country, however, today, is investing more in higher education than China. And no country has seen universities rise as rapidly to international recognition as China. And we think of this as happening overnight, but Chinese universities have a 130-year-old history, getting back to 1893 in the founding of what is today 武汉大学 (Wuhan University), the oldest Chinese university, founded by Zhang Zhidong, as the Self-Strengthening Institute in Wuhan. And these universities grew through the late Qing into the Republican period, and the Beiyang period. They thrived under the 国民政府, of the Nationalist period. They survived the Japanese invasion. They even survived the Cultural Revolution, which nearly destroyed education in China. And today, they are back, building on a strong foundation of pre-1949 universities, but also taking it to an altogether different level, in terms of their global capacities.
And it’s one of the things, when one thinks about universities, if you look to the long future, everyone worries about what will happen this or next or other year, but universities have to take the long view. They survive governments. They survive administrations. Harvard has survived. We were founded when this was a colony of Great Britain. It survived the American Revolutionary War, and indeed, part of the war was fought right here. Troops were billeted on the Harvard campus. This American Civil War, multiple incarnations, multiple American regimes. About the governments and administrations over this period of time. But you have to take a long view as to where you will be. And our long view is that engagement with the rest of the world is essential for the future of Harvard and for American higher education.
To take a counterexample. And the leading Chinese universities all know this. They absolutely know this, and they share the values of their counterparts in the United States and in Europe. But recently, three Chinese universities withdrew from global rankings in order to pursue what they called a “中国特色的教育”, education with Chinese characteristics. Now, that’s not a terrible thing, of course, every country has its own characteristics, but that meant that they were no longer also comparing themselves and competing against the best in the world. That is not a good sign, I think. Isolation, self-isolation is basically a death sentence for universities anywhere in the world. And if the Americans become isolationist in restricting scholars from coming to the United States or if Chinese universities no longer compare themselves also to the best in the world, then we’re all collectively in some trouble.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s good advice actually. You have vividly demonstrated how universities develop, for example, the American Universities learning from Germany and European universities. And that’s also very true, it’s the longest-running institution this day in the world. I mean, I haven’t heard of a company for several hundred years, but we hear about a university for several hundred years, which is still going very strong. Harvard is a good example. And also, that’s true I think, I really want to echo your thinking that university has to engage with the world, has to really compare with the world, and put into a big and global environment, and then let’s thrive, let’s compete, and let’s cooperate.
William Kirby:
The person who articulated what a great university could be, better than any university president that I’ve ever seen is Tsai Yuan-pei, Tsai Yuan-pei was Chancellor of Peking University during the 五四运动 (May Fourth Movement) period. And he said that students had to have a 世界观的教育, education with a worldview. He believed, in following the German model of what the Germans call Lehrfreiheit, the freedom to teach, and Lehrnfreiheit, the freedom to learn on the part of students, and he brought to the 北大 (Peking University) campus. You know, great liberal intellectuals like Hu Shi, but also China’s first Marxists in academic life — Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, these individuals, so that the students could choose for themselves what to believe and learn from themselves how to be productive citizens for the new China of the 20th century.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right. You have a very deep knowledge on China.
William Kirby:
And if you think of, of course, what is today Peking University’s great counterpart in the same city, Tsinghua. Tsinghua University was founded as a prep school to send Chinese to the United States in 1911, the last year of the Qing.
And today, I was very fortunate to be the senior advisor to Mr. Stephen Schwarzman, and to President Chen Jining, and then President Qiu Yong of Tsinghua University, in establishing the 苏世民书院 (Schwarzman College), this global college, a college of global affairs, at Tsinghua, which is bringing the best and the brightest of the world from China and from around the world to Tsinghua University. And its aspiration is to be the Rhodes Scholarship of the 21st century.
So when you think of this, think of this ambition. Here’s Tsinghua, founded as a place that sent Chinese away, now welcoming the best and the brightest of the world to Beijing. And their message is that why would a young student want to have a Rhodes scholarship? Why would you want to study in England? A cold, rainy, foggy, self-isolating island off the coast of Europe, when you can be in Beijing at the center of this great and global rising power? That’s the ambition. Whether they succeed or not, we shall see.
Huiyao Wang:
No, I think you’re right. I mean, I know the Schwarzman College very well. My son went there.
William Kirby:
Is that right?
Huiyao Wang:
Yeah.
William Kirby:
Fantastic.
Huiyao Wang:
So Dean Xue is a good friend. Actually, I’m a mentor (who) also takes interviews for them from time to time, screening the applicants. But it’s absolutely, you mentioned Stanford, you mentioned Harvard, they all learned from universities in Germany many years ago. And after you are right, you know, Tsinghua and even Peking University, Yenching were also with the American model in the beginning. So I think those really, you are absolutely correct, engage with the world, exchanges. And particularly, you know, the leading universities’ exchanges with each other are crucial. And then also attract talents from all over the world. And so that part of China is still lacking the United States for attracting talent from all over the world, not just diaspora, but really global talents.
William Kirby:
It is a challenge. And the language issues are big. Sure, it’s doable. So many courses are now taught at 清华 (Tsinghua University) and 北大 (Peking University) also in English or other languages. It is a challenge, but It’s one that can be overcome. If the flow of ideas is unimpeded, anything that stops the flow of ideas from one country to another is a source of concern and will lead to academic decline.
Huiyao Wang:
Yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, as a veteran educator, you know, I have experience in the US and China for many years. So that’s really great advice you’ve been providing. So I think it would really give a lot of food for thought on how a good university, how a better education system, and how a talent recruiting system can really facilitate the growth of the modern university. So you’ve been teaching also at Harvard Business School for some time. And of course, you’ve been meeting a lot of Chinese students, and also both in China and the US. So Harvard has been really a harbor of Chinese students for many years. A lot of people have good experience here. And now, the traffic between the US and China, I mean, the student exchange, Chinese students still going strong. So how do you feel about university students from China and other international countries too. So how do they perform? And what’s the recipe for Harvard to attract so many international students?
William Kirby:
I think the recipe is really, you have to, these students who come to Harvard could go anywhere. And so you have to attract them by being excellent. It’s not just the name. Harvard is a famous name, and the reputation of Harvard is greater the farther away you are from this city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. But we have our strengths, and like any institution, we also have our weaknesses. What is the best thing about, most of the Chinese graduates, still most of the Chinese students who come to Harvard come not as undergraduates — so that we do have wonderful undergraduates from China, but mostly in the graduate programs — and there’s something about a Ph.D. program, a graduate program, that is different from undergraduate college. People are admitted to undergraduate colleges in the United States for all kinds of reasons. You’re a good football player, or you’re a championship of fencer, or you’re a chess wizard, or whatever. But also, it’s very diverse points of view. It’s an unusual thing with American higher education.
Huiyao Wang:
So pay more attention to the personalities, traits, their specialties, and talents.
William Kirby:
Yes, and we’re always trying to bring the most diverse class possible to the campus, and have been expanding significantly our outreach to students whose families are not wealthy families, and for whom we give financial aid. A very significant 70% of our undergraduates are on financial aid. You don’t have to be rich to come to Harvard. That’s our message. But we have to keep repeating it and work at it.
The graduate school is different because it isn’t a central admissions office. It is every single department admitting purely on the basis of academic merit and promise. So it is the most meritocratic part of American higher education. The fact that we have so many Chinese as the largest cohort of any international grouping here at our graduate school shows you that the education that these people have received in China is extraordinary enough that we want to bring that talent also here. And again, if we are restricted — the Trump administration tried to restrict this, but Harvard and other universities resisted. And the Biden administration has been very helpful in bringing students over, providing visas, and so on.
What we have to work on now is the other side, that is, because of zero-COVID, there are almost no Americans studying in China. There are like 290,000 Chinese studying in the United States and 252 Americans studying in China. Now, that’s mostly, it was never going to be a high number, and as high a number for all kinds of reasons, including language. But also zero-COVID policy made it impossible for students to go. So this year, for the first time, this Harvard China Fund that I oversee, we’ve sent 20-plus students to work in internships this summer in China. We have an undergraduate student group that is sending a hundred students to work with Chinese high school students this summer. We are trying to bring our students back to China. We’re starting a summer school with Fudan University next summer. So we’re trying, but it’s, we have to push hard.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right, I think now, because with COVID, you know, China is totally open now. Welcome all foreigners, ten-year multiple-entry visas [between China and the U.S. are now] all valid. And then people can apply for more visas. And all the universities are geared up to welcome international students, particularly students from the US, too. So this is really great news. You are a champion for that. You are also the head of Harvard Shanghai Center and conducted so many activities. So maybe mention a bit about Harvard Shanghai Center, what is its purpose, and how they can facilitate the exchanges between China and the United States, and Harvard of course.
William Kirby:
So this center was founded in 2010. It’s in Lujiazui in Shanghai. And it houses a research staff from Harvard Business School working on business school cases. It houses faculty and students who come to work in China for periods of time. We have conferences and workshops, either in executive education for the Business School, or, much more commonly today, conferences on issues of public health, or from Harvard Law School, we have a disability program that has worked very successfully in China, Harvard Kennedy School, virtually every school at Harvard University has hosted a program or more with our Chinese counterparts at that center. And through our Harvard China Fund, this academic venture fund, we give grants to faculty who have to work and will work with their Chinese counterparts on issues related to modern China, of importance to modern China. And they give seminars and workshops also at this center. So before COVID, it was very busy. Last three years, not so busy. So it’s our job to restart it. But our mission right now is not just to restart where we are in Shanghai. We are looking also to expand our footprint elsewhere in China, in Beijing, or perhaps in South China. We don’t know yet, very early days. But we are trying to give the message that we are not retreating from China, we would like to deepen our relations with China.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s great. I can see you’ve been already three times in China, and this year. I mean, we hope you can come back more. And now we talked about so much about university, Harvard, and your new book. And now I’d like to go a little further. And because of, I was in Harvard 13 years ago, at that time, there was really a lot of exchanges, and the Sino-US relation was really in a very great shape. And now, for the last several years, in the last five, six years, we see a decline of China-US relations. And you being at this forefront, of course, teaching how to do business in China, and of course receiving scholars from both China and the US. So you are also an expert on China itself. So what do you think what went wrong? And how we can at least maintain these people-to-people exchanges? And then maybe how we can lift from them? I’m glad that Secretary Blinken and Secretary Yellen, and then John Kerry and even Dr Kissinger at 100 years old, all went to China. It’s remarkable. So can we really pull this back a little bit and stabilize? Of course, I understand we have to compete, but we also have to collaborate. Just like I was talking to Graham Allison at the Munich Security Conference. He said, we have heard too much about competition and less about cooperation, and at least we should hear the same amount of cooperation and competition or even more of cooperation. So from a top Chinese expert, what’s your overall assessment, and where are the future we can work together？
William Kirby:
Well, it is a very worrisome trend. Because I think you have, in some sense, there are certain outcomes that come from domestic politics in both countries. China moved rather significantly when, on political terms, to the left. And under President Trump, America moved significantly to the right, and maybe over the edge of the right. You have a kind of mutual suspicion, of mutual paranoia, which is not a good environment for some policy making. And both countries have taken, I fear, rather too short-term a view towards their strategic relationship. Because this relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. And I fear that both are managing the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and even year-to-year relationship by the kind of strategic vision, for example, that Kissinger had in his day.
It’s difficult to see that from either side, quite frankly, at present, where do we think this relationship is going? China will be here forever. The United States has been around for not quite as long as the Qing dynasty. But it has, I think, a very promising future. These two countries have enormous issues to solve including climate change. Look at what has happened in both countries this summer. They’re horrific. And now there’s terrible flooding in Beijing, bringing unexpected turbulence of a natural sort, but also in part manmade. And these are the two greatest polluters in the world. What is there a collective responsibility? So far, neither side has stepped up to the degree, that is.
How do they solve the biggest strategic issue of East Asia, which in my view, is not the Taiwan question? History has shown that question may not need to be resolved in a fundamental way for people to cooperate and to thrive across the Taiwan Strait. But I worry deeply about the situation in North Korea. Think of this, and this is something that I don’t hear my Chinese friends worrying about or the American side. But, frankly, if North Korea continues to have nuclear weapons. From a Chinese point of view, I sometimes joke that the greatest strategic danger for China is nuclear weapons in North Korea, because you don’t know where one of their missiles might land, and you’re closer than anybody else. But If they continue to have nuclear weapons, inevitably South Korea will have them. South Korea has them, Japan will help them, and Taiwan could help them. This is a disaster geopolitically for China. And at long-term strategic view of both the United States and China, how do they work together to establish a more stable situation on the Korean Peninsula? A stable situation that is stable enough that at some point the American troops go home from the South. But I don’t know what the solution ought to be. But it’s that lack of long-term thinking that really does, right now, we’re both managing, that assuming that worse things cannot happen. But I can guarantee you worse things can happen than where we are today.
Huiyao Wang:
Yeah, Thank you. You have some very unique, actually insightful views on this. I think that’s true, you know, because China has been growing and developing, and then for its open-door policy and also it’s embraced globalization, WTO, and particularly the exchanges with the world, so China has now become the second largest economy of the world. And China has been also the largest trading nation of 140 countries and contributes over one third of the global GDP. So I’m thinking the US used to have a view, okay, China, we support you to join the WTO, and then you could converge, become similar to our system. But as you said, China is a big country, with 5000 years history and its own cultural characteristics. The US is a big country with the largest economy in the world. So the two countries could not converge on each other, maybe, but then we would see how we can work together and coexist peacefully. So this probably takes some time.
I remember last time when I was talking to Joseph Nye, he was telling me, maybe by 2035, or 2040, or another 50 years, we may have another cycle of coming back and new equilibria. I remember talking to many Harvard professors, even including Professor Tony Saich, he has received so many Chinese visitors in his capacity. No Harvard Professor I talked to has actually been in favor of decoupling. And now we are talking about derisking. But also, nobody really wants to have the Cold War. I mean, even Professor Graham Allison warned that we should find a way to escape the Thucydides Trap. So I think this visit of high senior officials to China, and then probably Chinese officials’ visit to the US, could help to have a better understanding. And I also hope that at G20, President Xi, and President Biden, or even at the APEC summit, they can really meet again, maybe twice, so that we can try to find some stabilizing factor.
So one of the questions I have is that, if we can have a more multilateral system, or some kind of coexisting formula. And then, both the US and China can really accept each other. Because this binary review of autocracy and democracy may not work because China has a different system there. So what do you think about, in the long run, how we can peacefully coexist? Because I see this talent, student exchange is still very strong. Trade is very strong. Last year, they have actually broken the record for China-US trade numbers. And again, I know a lot of companies are not happy. For example, 70% of Chinese energy depends on import. China spends more to import chips than energy. And then if this CHIPS Act or CHIPS ban on selling high-end chips to China, then billions of billions of losses, trillions, for the US companies. And then their argument is that they cannot support R&D without China buying that. The reason Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan become the largest chipmakers is because they’re close to China, and they sell to China, and China can also subcontract many of those manufacturing. So this kind of decoupling or derisking model is not really productive. And you are the business professor, so what do you think about how we can really co-work together in the 21st century?
William Kirby:
Well, I think it’s very important to focus on those areas where we must work together, and on those areas where we absolutely can work together. So you have a kind of mutual paranoia, the fear that each side has a deep-hatched plot that will be to the detriment of the other side. This is in the political elites of both countries, not so much in the general population. And public opinion is very malleable. You know, 60% of Americans had a positive view of China before Trump was president. Now it’s 80% negative. The damage that his administration did in this area is really incalculable.
But I think, you know, if you look again, if you look at one area, this CHIPS Act in the United States. The United States has a foreign policy too easily defined by sanctions rather than by incentives. China has a foreign policy not by sanctions, but China has managed over the last five to eight years to antagonize almost all of its East Asian neighbors rather than being the big brother of its East Asian neighbors. Its relations with many of its East Asian neighbors are worse than they were ten or more years ago. And that drives them more toward seeking help from the United States. So it is, you have a kind of mutually reinforcing set of affairs.
But I think from the point of view, of business right now, we’re in a situation in which Chinese governments, local governments, provincial municipal governments, are welcoming foreign business back into China in an aggressive way. And if you’re an American company doing business in China today, your biggest political risk doesn’t come from Beijing. Come from Washington, because you don’t know where the next set of regulations can be.
And so my personal view is that in multiple areas, in technology, as in other areas, but as in education, it isn’t true that one side has to win, and another side has to lose. Who, after all, is the leader in the world of semiconductors? It’s a company, not a country. It’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, an extraordinary company, built with government support in the 1980s. But it was a private initiative and entrepreneurship on the part of Morris Chang and others. Now, his successor, Mark Liu, has made this a company without a peer in the world of semiconductors. They invest in mainland China. They invest now in the United States. They are a truly global company that is based in Taiwan. And yet, both sides, and particularly the American side, most recently, have kind of restricted the kind of freedom of, you know, market considerations for that company in deciding where next possibly to invest, hence this large investment in Arizona. And at the end of the day, the United States, which today produces about 12% of its high-end microprocessors, will end up producing 15% of its microprocessors in the United States. Will that make us feel more secure? I don’t quite get the policy. I think it does have some real strengths, but TSMC has to play the geopolitical risk of appeasing the Americans while also maintaining their contacts throughout the world, including in mainland China. You know, Morris Chang is one of the most remarkable business people I’ve ever met. I have done three or four business school cases on TSMC. And, you know, he was a Harvard freshman. And when he was here as a freshman, he came to love English literature, and he wanted to be an English major. And when his father, when he told his father that he wanted to be an English major, his father forced him to transfer down the river to MIT, to get a “real” education in engineering. That worked out very well. But he is, you know, a remarkable talent, and has built this company that is, at some sense, it’s geopolitical risk. If the Americans in the Chinese really care about this global economy, they should care significantly about the prosperity of a company that has no peer in the high-end world of semiconductors.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right. I think you cited this good example of this Morris Chang, he does made a huge contributions to the global high-tech industry. And particularly this case of, you know, this company that he found, TSMC is remarkable. And also, of course, Chinese in Taiwan who have actually built this very reputable global market. But I think also it has thrived together with the Asian market and global market. And so now they want to cut off the biggest market in China by 30%, 40% of semiconductors worldwide. And that is really hurting all the bottom lines of all the companies. So the policy may not be wise.
I’m expecting, you know, Secretary Raimondo is visiting China this month. And hopefully, you know, we could get some more clarification as to, you know, how many things they can lift or stop. for example, there are 1,300 companies or individuals on the American entity or sanction list. You know, maybe there’s a few from China too. But it’s really incompatible. Maybe we could stop that or lift some of that. And you know even this Defense Minister could be lifted so that he can talk to the US Defense Minister, or the Hong Kong Chief Executive can be lifted from sanction so he can attend APEC summit. So there are a lot of things.
William Kirby:
It’s interesting. It has really gotten more than a little bit out of hand. Sanctions, or what you do when you want to show an opinion and have some influence. But the number of cases where international sanctions have actually achieved their purpose is very few. South Africa under apartheid is one example of eventually achieving something. But look at the American sanctions on Cuba, which began in 1960. How successful have they been?
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right. It’s very counterproductive. Another example is, I know there’s, there’s a research lab that plays a key role in stopping Fentanyl coming into the United States. But it has been under sanctions, so basically…
William Kirby:
That I didn’t know.
Huiyao Wang:
…discourage them, paralyze them from doing more. So I think, we should probably abandon this kind of keep sanctioning on each other.
William Kirby:
Well, you know, one company that I’ve studied very well is one of the greatest apparel makers in the world, a shirtmaker. It’s called Esquel, headquartered in Hong Kong, but it produces in China. And at its height, it made more than half of the high-end men’s cotton woven shirts in the world and made from excellent Xinjiang cotton, buying cotton from Uyghur farmers in Xinjiang. But they were accused quite wrongly, in my view, a very poor bit of research, they were accused by some non-profit of using “forced labor” in Xinjiang, which they deny. I’ve actually been to the plant that they were accused of, which is almost entirely automated. So I think it is a mistake. But they have invited in, so they want to get off this antidikos. They’re on the antidikos, and lost many markets around the world because of it. And they would welcome international visitors to come and look at the facilities and to judge for themselves. But then the Chinese side won’t let the international visitors come and look. So they’re caught between the global tensions between China and the United States.
Huiyao Wang:
Yeah, we should have more visitors. I mean, I think Xinjiang should probably welcome all the visitors. We know there are some ambassadors going, some journalists. But we should, you know, welcome even more so that some myths and some misunderstandings, interpretation can be clarified. But we know that Chinese companies sometimes also have a hard time in the US. You are the business professor, for example, this ByteDance, its CEO has been grilled for 6 hours in the Congress. And then they were worried about this TikTok has some national security issues.
But I sometimes was wondering, I mean, we talk about Taiwanese companies. We know that Apple, and Gerry Gou, and Foxconn. Apple produces more than 90% of its gadgets, phones, iPads , and computers, everything in China. And there is no national security issue. But then, so probably we should not be paranoia or really suspect each other so much that we really should trust each other. The industry, as you said, the industry knows what’s the best. And they are gonna stick to the rules and the regulations.
China also actually, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have put a proposal of an eight-point data initiative which says any company operating in foreign countries from China, they are not required, they should not report their data back to the Chinese government. If the Chinese government wants to have it, they should talk to the government of the other countries. So there are rules and regulations, but a lot of communication has not been there. And people just see some headlines and news.
William Kirby:
TikTok is one of these great examples. Just imagine that the two greatest countries in the world today having a dispute over a teenage video app as one of the central areas of confrontation. It’s absolutely insane. Of course, TikTok is extraordinarily popular these days. And so with the several states, I forgot which one, Montana, has forbidden TikTok to be shown nor used in schools or in other things. And public officials in different state governments are being told that they can’t have or make a TikTok. These people, of course, have no idea how to do it anyway. They’re too old. You have to be young and imaginative in order to do well with that app.
But I think this is an area where I would hope that we could see some real progress in the coming years — more Chinese private companies investing in the United States because many would like to. Obviously, who’s the leader of battery technology? It’s China, right? CATL, BYD, others in China, Ford with its licensing agreement with CATL. This is a very important step. If the Americans are going to move toward electric vehicles, we have to work closely with China in order to do this. And we should be welcoming Chinese automobile manufacturers doing EVs and others in the United States. And I can guarantee you that if it were possible politically, any mayor or governor of any state in the United States would welcome Chinese investment in it.
Let me give you one example of a company that I know very well because one of my very first business school cases was on Wanxiang. Lu Guanqiu founded this company in 1969, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, the worst year in Chinese history to found a company, I think, just about. But he eventually started to make universal joints for trucks and cars, got into the state plan 10 years later, now the largest auto components manufacturer in China, which is the largest automobile manufacturing country in the world.
But he invests, and with his son-in-law Ni Pin, here in Chicago. They invest in the United States in a dying industry, auto parts in the first decade of this century when this industry is going downhill. And they helped to revive a number of companies, saved tens of thousands of jobs, and also learned how to improve their own product back home, are extraordinarily profitable. They now are making a hybrid sports car in California. When Lu Gaunqiu passed away about three years ago in Hangzhou, he had a memorial service in Hangzhou, There were memorials for him in Beijing, and there was a very large memorial for him in Chicago, overseen by the Governor of Illinois and the Mayor of Chicago, two people who mostly didn’t agree on anything. They agreed that they wanted to honor Mr. Lu, who had invested so much in the Upper Midwestern economy and whose company, WanXiang, had become a great corporate citizen. This is a model that other Chinese companies can follow. It’s not easy, but the opportunities are here. If the geopolitics can recede a bit and allow business to proceed on business terms.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s precisely the great point that you’ve been raising. I think there are many at state, local level, municipality levels. In the old days, they would really continue to help. But also, now we need to really boost the US economy, and also China wants to go global. And then I see in this area, particularly with pressure of the climate change. The clean technology that China already developed, like EV cars, is the already biggest manufacturing in the world now. And you can see Elon Musk, how successful he’s in China. Half of his EV cars have been produced in China and then he becomes the richest man in the world. And you have also mentioned CATL. They’re working with Ford now, and they are the biggest battery manufacturer in the world.
And I’m a personal friend of Mr. Cao Dewang of Fuyao Glass. He actually opened his big factory in the Ohio, which President Obama even participated in his documentary American Factory, and many people like that. And of course, BYD is also doing well. China’s leading the wind power, solar power, electric power, and battery power. We are facing this climate change, and we want to, as two largest emitters in the world — I mean, China is even larger — so we can actually have many things to work between Chinese companies, US governments, and Chinese businesses and local governments, too.
So I think we have brought in an example. You mentioned Wanxiang in Chicago, you have Elon Musk in Shanghai, those are really perfect examples. We should have more of that. So I think, I notice the administration is now talking about a small-yard high-fence. And the yard really wants to be smaller and smaller. Like Yellen said, all the large businesses should continue. So we should really do that. I really agree with what you just mentioned.
William Kirby:
On energy policy, both countries have different approaches, Of course. The rhetoric is all about clean energy, the Biden administration, and President Xi and his team. And yet the reality is that China is the leader in green energy, but it’s also building more coal-fired power plants every day than any place in the world for energy security. And here in the United States, you have many people on the more liberal or left side of the political spectrum seeking more and more green energy. And yet many people, on the Republican side in particular, think we need to reinvest more in oil and gas and so on, also for energy security. So you have conflicting views in both countries and conflicting realities.
Huiyao Wang:
I think we should really have more, I hope that this COP28, I also hope that with the recent visit of John Kerry, we could get some more understanding. China has recently announced that it’s not gonna build coal fire plants outside China or Belt and Road countries. But I think domestically, there are some balancing issues. But I think eventually as the development of clean technology, they should really gradually phrase out all those coal plants. So that’s really important for China.
William Kirby:
Yes, a major challenge.
Huiyao Wang:
Yes. So now maybe we’ll come to our last part of the discussion. I know that you travel a lot internationally. And of course, China-US is now at every conference, at every forum, becoming the deep subject of the many of the discussions. And I know that recently, in recent two years, we have this war on Ukraine. I even wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last year in March when the war broke out. We said China should play some positive role, mediating role, promoting the peace and then talks, and then we do see the Chinese government propose 12-point position paper on that.
With this war still drags on, it’s still very dangerous now. The US is absolutely also involved with NATO, and support. So how do you see this prospect, and how China and the US can work together? I mean, the EU also is very, very important. So is there a possibility that the US, EU, and China have a trilateral mechanism that really works on this issue with the UN, and maybe, as I said in the New York Times op-ed, maybe we could have a seven-party talk, P5 plus EU plus Ukraine? This is really in many minds of European countries, and of course, America too.
China wants to see the peaceful end of this conflict, and then China doesn’t really side with Russia. Of course, China wants probably some neutral position, but in order to really convince both Russia and Ukraine, China couldn’t be 100% position as the US or EU. So on this, I don’t know if you have any idea.
William Kirby:
I do have some ideas. You know, countries sometimes, and the United States, our recent history is full of major foreign policy mistakes or foreign policy errors. Look at, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe these are own goals as one would say, in the world of soccer, in the world of football, but at a great cost to the country and cost to those countries, I think, major foreign policy mistakes. I fear that the alignment of China with Russia during the Winter Olympics of 2022 is also such an occasion, given the long history of Chinese-Soviet relations, the very up-and-down history of Chinese-Soviet relations. But it was absolutely to the detriment of China’s relationship with Europe, because two weeks after Mr. Putin visited President Xi, a war breaks out. And people have to believe that the Chinese side gave Russia a blank check to do what they wished. Not that they could stop it, but surely Mr. Putin would have told them what might happen.
The most famous blank check in diplomatic history was that Germany gave Austria in 1914 — Serbia is a troublesome neighbor, go ahead and deal with Serbia —after the events of June of 1914. And this blank check unleashes WWⅠ. Blind checks are very expensive to cash, as it turns out two years later. The German general leading the war named Ludendorff writes to a friend about Austria, Germany’s ally. And he says, we are allied to a corpse. And, Austria, a little bit like Russia today, was a great and ancient empire that is having difficulty holding on to its periphery. And sometimes in the decline of empires in world history, that is when they are most dangerous, and here you see from one point of view, at least, Mr Putin seeking to regain territory that had been formerly part of the Soviet Union by invading a sovereign country that China recognizes as a sovereign country.
So China is now in a very difficult position because it believes in the sanctity of borders, it believes in national self-determination, it believes in the Charter of the United Nations on the sanctity of borders, it believes that countries should not interfere in each other’s internal affairs. And yet it has tacitly but not explicitly backed the Russian side in this, but it has come at an enormous cost to China’s relations with Europe because a war has been unleashed on the doorstep of Europe for the first time on a large scale since WWⅡ. So this is a heavy responsibility on the Chinese side in my view.
And so perhaps with that responsibility comes the authority to actually then do something significant. I think China could be a broker of peace in this war. I think the Ukrainians have maintained very professional relations with China, and China’s maintained professional relations with Ukraine. It will have a greater influence possibly on the Russian side than any other country, almost surely than any other country. If one is to bring this bloodshed to an end in a way that both stops the aggression, stops the killing, leads, I hope, to withdraw, but also to whatever security needs that need to be addressed on the Russian side, which has not been particularly well articulated. But it is a terribly damaging war, of course, most damaging of all to Ukraine, where you see these beautiful cities being attacked, civilians being killed for reasons that really harken back to a war that happened more than 100 years ago.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s very unfortunate and very tragic, and it’s shocked the whole world. We haven’t seen any war broken out in the last 77 years after the WWⅡ on the European continent. And this is about the largest scale war that we’ve ever seen as modern human beings. And also the modern world that you show on the television set every day and on social media. That’s really affected everybody.
William Kirby:
And think of it from the World War. China today is, in my view, in the best strategic position of its modern history. There is no country that actually threatens China’s borders today. Certainly not Russia, not Japan, not Taiwan, not Vietnam, not India, although there are tense relations with many of these. No one threatens China’s borders today, and China has prospered because we are today from 1979, the end of the battles with Vietnam, Chinese-Vietnam war in 1979, we are in the longest period of peace in East Asia since the Opium War.
That peace is the precondition of prosperity. That peace allows for investment from the outside into China, it allows for Chinese entrepreneurs to have confidence in their future, and allows for Chinese governments to invest in the future of their country and in the infrastructure that has helped make China so strong today. Peace is the precondition of prosperity. And anything that endangers peace endangers everything. And this is why talk of war, wherever it is, whether it’s in Korea, Taiwan Strait, anywhere, is dangerous because it increases the possibility simply to talk about it and to prepare for it. The great diplomatic historian, British historian, A. J. P. Taylor once said, that war is never inevitable until it breaks out. But when it does, then you do not know what the consequences will be.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right. It is so devastating. And of course, in modern life, the current generation, nobody experienced war — probably their grandfathers or grandmothers. I was visiting the European Union in May with one of the senior officials, and they were sitting a row of senior officials of the European Commission on the opposite side. And the head of the table, he said, look, our ancestors, our grandfathers all from different countries. We used to fight but now we are sitting at one table. So the European Union, we see a war broke out on the border, which is really dangerous.
And absolutely, China, as you said, is probably enjoying the peace time never seen in the last 75 years because China has 4000 km of borders with Russia, and it used to be a big worry for China also. Absolutely right. Now Russia depends quite heavily on economic trade with China. I think China is in a good position, and China is also the largest trading partner with Ukraine. And also, after the war, China could be the largest reconstructor of Ukraine as well.
William Kirby:
Absolutely. So it will be the best use of the Belt and Road imaginable.
Huiyao Wang:
That’s right. Ukraine is a signing country of the Belt and Road as well, so I think there could be a way that the US, EU, and China can talk together, and then bring Russia and bring Ukraine to the table. Then if China is there, both sides will say, China is here because it’s a neutral party, we are willing to compromise and do something. So at least we should start some process. And absolutely, I think, it’s important to this soft power China is more and more having after broking the deal with Iranians and Saudis. It’s getting there and hopefully, we could better use that. And your advice is really important.
So Bill, the last time I met you, we were attending the advisory board meeting for Duke Kunshan University. We are both sitting on that advisory board. But I want to conclude because we’re today at Harvard, at the heart of Harvard library. So Harvard has a long tradition with China, we’ve talked a bit about that. I know that there are still many schools here at Harvard. We know you are at the Harvard Business School, but used to also be the dean of Arts and Humanity faculty. And we have Fairbank Center, we have Yenching Center, Harvard-Yenching Studio, we have Harvard Kennedy School and Design School, Education School. So it seems there are a lot of bonds and connections that China has. And also you talked about the stone that Hu Shi donated here. I saw that is really very noticeable. So maybe we want to conclude, and also including the Shanghai Center that Harvard’s only outside campus in the world. So as the China-US academic exchanges, particularly Harvard and China, you are the leading figure for that, maybe we can conclude on the further exchanges. And also what about those activities of different schools. Are they still very active or how can they do more in the future?
William Kirby:
They have remained as active as possible happily thanks to Zoom and other things over the course of zero-COVID. Our school of Public Health worked very strongly with China. Gerald and Ronnie Chan named the school for their father, the T.H. Chang School of Public Health here at Harvard. But our colleague, Winnie Yip, who runs the China program there, is extraordinarily active. She’s in China, I believe right now, working on issues of public health, both in rural areas, which is her specialty, but also that school worked closely with Chinese counterparts in the first years of COVID on dealing with the public health response in China and elsewhere to the COVID pandemic.
Our School of Design has worked extraordinarily well with local governments as well with firms on design issues and urban planning in modern China, actually, for more than a century. We have city plans that go back, I once wrote an essay about how Nanjing became the capital in 1927, and we have the original city plan for Nanjing as the capital. It would have been, and it was a beautiful capital, and still a beautiful city today. So every school of Harvard has an engagement with China that’s very, very important. And every school wants to continue, our School of Education, we have wonderful Chinese graduate students who come on a very frequent basis, and right now I’m editing a volume about innovation in higher education with my colleague, Howard Gardner of the School of Education. And of course, a number of these case studies of innovation are to be found in China today. So we have so much to look forward to. Harvard-Yenching Institute founded in the late 1920s has brought to Harvard so many generations of talent from China to Harvard, who have made a big impact here at Harvard and then returned to make an even bigger impact, we hope, back in China.
And the reason I’m so passionate about re-engaging and deepening our commitment is this: I was a student of John Fairbank, 费正清教授. John Fairbank learned his Chinese history at Tsinghua University in the 1930s. He was a student of Tsiang Tingfu, the great historian who was educated on a boxer Indemnity scholarship at Oberlin and at Columbia, and became chairman of the history department at Tsinghua. Fairbank served in the consulate in the embassy in Chongqing during the war, and came back to start China programs here. He had a strong sense of academic collaboration from the 1930s, and 40s into the early 50s. Then it was cut off by the Korean War on both sides, and it would not restart until the early 1970s.
He said one of his biggest regrets in life to me once, was the cutting off of these academic friendships and relations with Chinese universities and Chinese scholars, and he said this with great regret in the 1970s. I would say that we are determined not to happen again. We share, broadly speaking, the same values as our Chinese counterparts. For political reasons, there are difficulties on both sides in acting upon those values at times, but in the year 2013, Chinese university presidents from the C9 group, the nine leading universities, signed with the American association of research universities, the British Russell Group, the Australian Group of Eight, a series of principles about what are universities for. They are for freedom of research and teaching, they are for academic autonomy and self-governance, and they are for the creation of knowledge in an unfettered environment.
This reminds me of a very famous phrase at Tsinghua University, there was a scholar named Wang Guowei who committed suicide in 1927 political protest against the nationalists. And his colleague Chen Yinke wrote a memorial to him, saying that his was a “独立之精神，自由之思想”, a spirit independent and a mind unfettered. Those are the values held dear at Tsinghua University, and those are the ones that we hold dear here at Harvard. And we need to act on them to the highest degree possible to increase our mutual understanding and our cooperation.
Huiyao Wang:
Yes. That’s a really great recall of all those historical inspirations and movie stories, and also, of course, and also still inspires us to continue. I remember when I was spending a year at Harvard Kennedy School as a senior fellow, and it was really a lot of learning. The campus here, the exchanges, and the attitudes to welcome Chinese student was enormous. I remember during that time, the same with me was Pan Gongsheng. He was one of the fellows, and now he’s just promoted to the governor of the People’s Bank of China. And then there’s another new fellow, Mr Wang Weizhong, now become the governor of Guangdong Province. So you can see how good Harvard is.
William Kirby:
Yes, I see. And one person I came to know very well when working on this Schwarzman, 苏世民书院, was President Chen Jining. I visited him in Shanghai recently, now that he is Party Secretary of Shanghai. He was, I think, one of the most amazing university presidents that I have ever met.
Huiyao Wang:
Yes. He got his PhD in the UK.
William Kirby:
He is an extraordinarily talented, remarkable man, who assisted this program. But he was brought from Tsinghua to another government in just a short period of time. And of course, he’s doing very well in Shanghai today. We would love to see him come and visit us here at Harvard.
Huiyao Wang:
Of course. Very much time flies, and we’ve been talking for an hour and a half. It’s really great, I mean, you’ve been leading these efforts and then promoting academic people-to-people changes between China and the USA, and of course, Harvard and many universities in China. That’s remarkable. So we really appreciate your time to talk to me. And also, we would really want to continue this cooperation and also the inspiration that we’re having from each other.
But also I really appreciate that at the beginning of your opening remark, you mentioned the engagement with the world, and then that’s the history of all the universities, and probably that’s also the spirit of all the countries. We need to engage, not decouple, and not derisk. So once again, I really appreciate it.
William Kirby:
But the one thing, maybe you can show, when the program ends, you can show the cover of my book. It shows a beautiful building on the Nanjing University campus, 南京大学的北大楼, the great Northern building of Nanjing University. And it’s in a beautiful Chinese style. It was built not by today’s Nanjing University, but by 金陵大学 (Jinling University), which was a Chinese-American joint venture in 1919, in a beautiful Chinese style but by an American architect. And that American architect was an ancestor of one of my colleagues here at Harvard, Professor Dwight Perkins in our economics department.
Universities, architecturally, you could look at Harvard, which has its emulative architecture from different parts of the world, including from Britain. But universities are architecturally, and intellectually international in origin, and we must always remember that.
Huiyao Wang:
Let’s keep it international, keep it global, keep engagement. Thank you very much, Bill.
William Kirby:
And thank you very much for the work that you’re doing too, for dialogue across the Pacific.
Huiyao Wang:
Thank you very much. So we finished this episode of CCG special dialogue at Widener library at Harvard campus. Thank you very much for viewing this. Thank you. Goodbye.
Note: The above text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. It is posted as a reference for the discussion.
