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Event to focus on international issues. Citizen’s Diplomacy Community Summit in Great Falls, Montana

Events in India or Iraq or China can cause ripples as far away as Montana.

Trade with other countries is increasingly important. The Iraq war has produced broad effects in this country.

So don’t ignore what happens in other nations.

That’s the thrust behind a Citizen’s Diplomacy Community Summit, set for 5:30 p.m. today in the Missouri Room at the Civic Center. It’s a four-hour event focusing on international issues, featuring speakers affiliated with the University of Montana.

"The world is small," says one organizer, Bob Harris of Great Falls. "We all need to get to know each other, and this is one way of doing it."

By RICHARD ECKE
Tribune Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060510/NEWS01/605100306/1002

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Guest Opinion: China economy grows; human rights lag behind

By BOB BROWN

"Like it or not, the present Chinese government is here to stay. Like it or not, China is a major power in Asia. It is therefore in this nation’s interest, and in the interest of world peace to try conscientiously and consistently to do whatever we can to reshape the relationship with the Chinese along more constructive lines."

This was a bold statement for Sen. Mike Mansfield to make in March of 1968.

Four year later, Nixon went to China, and the more constructive relationship that Mansfield envisioned has been unfolding ever since.

Mansfield’s interest in China began when, as a young Marine, he was stationed in Tientsin, now Tianjin, near Peking, now Beijing. I recently returned from a teaching opportunity at Nankai University, located in Tianjin, only a few miles from the barracks, still standing, that Mansfield’s detachment occupied 84 years ago.

Present-day Tianjin is a city of 10 million people, roughly twice the size of Chicago, yet most Americans have never heard of it. Nor have we ever heard of Zheng Zhou, Shijiazhuang, Xi’an or numerous other huge cities and countless rural villages that are home to China’s 1.3 billion people, a population more than four times as large as that of the United States. In fact, about one fifth of all human beings are Chinese.

Today China is in the throes of incredible transition. Though it certainly could not have happened without the change in relationship he encouraged, Mansfield could not possibly have foreseen what is taking place in China today.

Demanding copper, concrete
Economically, modern China is no more communist than California. Capitalism is everywhere and thriving. China’s economy is expanding at the rate of 10 percent per year. Its major cities are a forest of construction cranes, and a pageant of neon signs on modern buildings hawk everything from 24-hour banking to fast food, cosmetics, life insurance and real estate. Fifty percent of the world’s concrete is being consumed in this building boom. Of no small consequence to Butte, China is also using 25 percent of the world’s copper, which three years ago was trading for less than a dollar a pound and today hovers at $3.30 per pound.

China is embarking on the construction of a massive network of expressways connecting its lesser cities and towns. The road building projects appeared labor intensive and much of the equipment primitive by our standards, but such construction was everywhere in anticipation of millions of new automobiles to be manufactured in China and owned by a rapidly emerging middle class desperately eager to enjoy the free-market lifestyle. Perhaps surprising to us, the Chinese government wants them to. Gas sells for the equivalent of about $1.50 a gallon. Tiny, fuel-efficient cars sell for less than $4,000. Already we are beginning to see the impact of China’s appetite for oil in the increasing price of oil globally.

Per capita income in China is well below $2,000 per year. Some Chinese have become very rich, but most remain poor. Still, the standard of living is steadily improving and is vastly better than it was under Mao Zedong. Optimism is everywhere.

Large problems loom
China also faces great problems. Its natural resources are severely depleted from millennia of exploitation by a vast population. I saw immense roiling clouds of yellow dust generated by winds across the Gobi Desert where, 1,000 miles from where I stood, great forests once grew in the now arid wasteland. China is reforesting, but progress is not encouraging. Wildlife is virtually nonexistent; nowhere can you drink the water; a haze of pollution cloaks the air.

China isn’t free. Its leaders are not elected. By their authority, an estimated 10,000 people were executed last year, some for serious crimes, some for petty crimes, some for religious and political activities that are not crimes by our standards.

There is not even the pretense of a free press. I have been in some remote corners of the world in recent years but could always find access to CNN. Not in China. I am told CNN is available anywhere but China and North Korea. I could get world news, though crudely censored, from the BBC. Technology is changing this, but authorities are fiercely fighting the free flow of information.

The awakening of China after centuries of dormancy is causing anxiety. Our global canoe is destabilized as a huge new passenger lumbers aboard. China needs stability for continued prosperity. Maybe as they concentrate on paddling, the Chinese will see the necessity of helping to restrain the canoe’s most obstreperous passenger — the one wearing the turban.

Bob Brown, a retired teacher, former Montana secretary of state and legislator, writes from Missoula, where he is a senior fellow at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West.

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

JCB wrote on May 06, 2006 11:36 AM
Bob Brown and Mike Mansfield have been great leaders with forsight, and also great teachers because they are excellent students. I enjoyed the writings of Mr. Brown so much I did a little research and found more of his very interesting resume. I would like to copy and paste a few words pertaining to some of Mr. Brown’s teachings. Thanks to Walter Hinick/Montana Standard – reprinted in the Gazette on 10/10/2004 (Little known fact about Brown: He has traveled for U.S. State Department to help teach emerging democracies in Indonesia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, China and Angola how to set up democratic institutions.)

Story available at http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/05/06/opinion/guest/52-guestopinion2.txt

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