“Reception Hall with Tang Ning” is one of the most popular internet interactive broadcast shows in China with a very large audience base across the nation. Mr. Tang Ning is the founder and CEO of CreditEase Group and the host of “Reception Hall with Tang Ning Show.” 

On January 26, Josh Cheng, Executive Director of Stanford Center at Peking University, was invited to make an appearance in the show with two other guests: Professor Xiao Zhixing, and Mr. Jingsheng Huang, who retired last June from the post of Managing Director of Harvard (Shanghai) Center. The issue focused on the discussion, once again, was an extremely hot topic in China nowadays…. “Pursuing studies in America.”  It was estimated by CreditEase staff, and the January 26 show attracted close to a million viewers.

In the discussion, Mr Cheng strongly advises Chinese parents that if the family had the means and capabilities, sending kids to study in America is a decision that “goes without saying.”  Cheng alluded, based on his personal experience, that education in the US had completely changed his mindset, opened up brand new horizons, and equipped with a new set of perspectives and angles that had been guiding his career life. Stanford's education has profoundly changed his life and his family life for many generations to come.

Strategically, Cheng advised, Chinese parents ought to urge their youngsters to come to North America to explore and discover new fields, a new society, new ways of thinking, and more importantly, to discover themselves. Parents should not urge and expect their youngsters to come to America by living in a very closed Chinese speaking cluster and isolated from American society at large and forget about the mission of coming to American is not only taking some courses and get some degrees but to experience a discovery process that explores humanity, society, technologies, universe and themselves.

Professor Xiao Zhixing, who taught at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), has worked with many entrepreneurs in China for a long time. Those entrepreneurs are more likely to send their kids abroad earlier; thus, their children lacked a sense of purpose and motivation. He pointed out that entrepreneurs should pay more attention to their children's cultural identity, self-identity, and sense of belonging and cultivate their creativity and leadership.

Mr. Huang commented on whether to go abroad at present: at a strategic level, education is a marathon, the same as life. It is unwise to be bound by age. Studying abroad is something that any age group can do, and it can be a lifelong plan. At the tactic level, for Chinese students who are currently facing the choice of studying abroad, they can make full use of the gap year to enrich themselves and improve their abilities in all aspects. Parents need to broaden their horizons and understand their children's wishes. Studying in Britain and the United States is not the only choice.

Watch the discussion here.

According to a local report there are more than 600,000 students from China currently studying in the US and millions of Chinese families are planning to send their kids to pursue their education in North America.

However, the deterioration of Sino US relations in recent years, combined with uncertainties from the pandemic around the globe had had a profound impact on those students who are already studying in the US and parents who are preparing to send their kids to study in America.

Stanford Center at Peking University, along of other peer institutions in China, had been approached by various groups seeking perspectives and insights on critical issues: Is it still safe and sound to send kids to study in America? Are there indications that US universities and schools are closing their doors to Chinese students?  Should parents and students start to seek other options, perhaps study in the UK or other countries?

In response to such concerns and with a desire to serve local communities, a round table panel discussion was held at the Yale Center of China in Beijing on Dec 26, 2020.   Stanford’s Executive Director, Josh Cheng, was among the nine directors of American education institutions with Centers in China who participated in the discussion.  Others (shown in the photo) participating in person were Yale, Chicago, Cornell, Notre Dame, and Columbia.  Representatives from Harvard, Wharton and Princeton participated virtually.

The directors shared with their personal experiences as well as institutional practices to directly address many concerns expressed by Chinese parents and students.  They believe US universities and schools will continue to welcome Chinese students, both in undergraduate and post graduate programs.  Having international students is an inseparable part of the global extension effort by almost every American educational institution. 

Stanford University just issued a statement in support of Stanford's international students and scholars, explicitly including those from China.

https://news.stanford.edu/today/2021/02/08/statement-president-marc-tessier-lavigne-support-stanfords-international-students-scholars/

Josh Cheng shared his perspectives on the safety and security concerns with Chinese parents. Using practices at Stanford, and other American universities, Mr. Cheng reiterated that American universities always make the safety and security of its students, staffs and faculties top priority.

The panel discussion was well attended, and it was agreed that if the pandemic policy of limiting visitors by PKU is lifted in near future, the Stanford Center at Peking University could serve as next host of the continuing discussion on US China Education.

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This op-ed by Donald K. Emmerson first appeared in The Jakarta Post.

Above all, Trump wanted to be a winner. History granted his wish. He is the first president in the 245-year life of his country to have been impeached twice. By that standard, he won the title of America’s Worst President (AWP)—worse than any of the 44 presidents who preceded him.

AWP rhymes with 'gawp,' and that’s what he also wanted: to be stared at, talked about, catered to, the center of fawning attention, unforgettably present, dominating the news, astride the world in which the news is made. He wanted applause. His ravenous insecurity—narcissism—inflated his ego to continental size. In effect, in his authoritarian imagination, the “extremely stable genius” that he called himself deserved to be the indispensable “me” in “America,” without which the country’s name and the country itself would crumble.

The roars and chants of Trump’s crowds slaked his thirst for veneration. But they imprisoned him in his “base.” By satisfying his craving to be idolized, they gave him no reason to convince the unimpressed. How much more gratifying it must have been for him to bask in mass flattery at rallies than to engage in the difficult business of persuading the uncommitted. That would have taken assets he lacked: empathy, knowledge, intelligence, and a willingness not to lie.

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So how could Americans have elected such a demagogue? Trump was corrupt but charismatic. He broke the rules. He said whatever was on his mind. He appealed to the streak of individualism in American culture. He ran his campaign and his presidency as a mass entertainment featuring a lone patriot fighting a “deep state” controlled by globalist elites. Especially in rural areas between Silicon Valley and the Boston-to-Washington corridor, millions of white Americans felt threatened by the transfer of jobs from physical toward mental labor in a computerized society whose racial make-up was increasingly non-white. Globalization fed those anxieties. Trump stoked them. He promised to end them and “make America great again.”

Joe Biden defeated Trump in both the popular vote and the Electoral College—respectively by 4.4 and 13.7 percent. Biden’s margins were narrower than one might have wished, given the blatant flaws in Trump’s character, including the 30,573 false or misleading claims that he made during his presidency as tracked and noted by The Washington Post . The egregiousness of his behavior is, however, a double testament to America’s democratic system: to its failure to select a less despicable leader, yes, but also to its success in providing the lawful framework within which his desperate effort to stage what in Latin America would be called an autogolpe or “self-coup” could be and was overcome.

On 1 February 2021, watching television at his 126-room estate in Palm Beach, Florida, ex-president Trump would have learned of the coup in Myanmar and might have envied Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Both men had been banned by Facebook for inciting violence in their respective countries—Trump in 2021, the general in 2018. Both had suffered defeats in elections held just five days apart in 2020—3 November in the US, 8 November in Myanmar. Both had rejected the voters’ verdict, claiming fraud. But whereas Trump’s frantic and deadly effort to subvert the US election and retain power failed, Min Aung Hlaing’s self-coup has succeeded, at least for now. The general quickly seized full power despite his party’s massive embarrassment at the polls in November, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party having won 83 percent of the available seats. In contrast, Trump could not reverse his exit from power despite a far slimmer margin of electoral defeat. To the extent that the ex-president was even aware of the difference, it could have fanned what angry envy of the general he may have felt.

Trump failed mainly due to the checks and balances that generally call government to account in America. Min Aung Hlaing succeeded in no small part thanks to the checks and balances in the bank accounts of the generals who have compromised Myanmar’s transition to democracy and helped make it the second most corrupted country in Southeast Asia (after Cambodia) as measured by the Corruption Perceptions Index.

Among the many reactions to the Burmese coup, several stand out for their courage and creativity. UN Secretary General António Guterres was unequivocal. "It's absolutely unacceptable,” he said, “to reverse the result of the elections and the will of the people.” Presumably speaking on behalf of the UN, its secretariat, or himself, or all three, he went further: "We'll do everything we can to mobilize all the key actors of the international community to put enough pressure on Myanmar to make sure that this coup fails." 

This notable response came from Indonesia’s former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa: “Deafening silence in the face of assaults against democratic principles [has] increasingly become the norm,” he said. He urged ASEAN to “demonstrate its relevance: It must speak urgently for the respect of constitutional process and rule of law in Myanmar, and call for the immediate release of those unlawfully detained.”

In the days immediately following the coup, ASEAN’s Bruneian secretary general said nothing about it, preferring to remain, in the Indonesian expression, “silent in a thousand tongues.” Speaking for ASEAN as its current chair, however, Brunei’s government did at least encourage a “return to normalcy in accordance with the will and interests of the people of Myanmar,” noting that the group charter’s called for adherence to “democracy, the rule of law” and “human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

As for ASEAN’s next chair, Cambodia, its strongman Hun Sen did speak, but only to say that "Cambodia does not comment on the internal affairs of any country at all.” Hun Sen’s restraint made historical sense. Had Cambodia’s old despot chosen to criticize Myanmar’s new despot, observers could have noted that Min Aung Hlaing had only done what Hun Sen himself had bloodily accomplished in 1997 by seizing full control over Cambodia in a self-coup of his own that had enabled him to become the longest-serving prime minister in the world.

Critical Southeast Asian voices, unconstrained by look-the-other-way diplomacy, have been heard. The chairman of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Charles Santiago, has urged ASEAN to send a high-level delegation to Myanmar to tell Min Aung Hlaing that his coup “violates ASEAN principles and the ASEAN charter” and is “not acceptable.” “If Myanmar does not turn around,” he added, “there should be proceedings to expel Myanmar out of ASEAN.”

Who is better positioned to deal with this crisis than ASEAN’s largest and debatably least authoritarian member country? It was Indonesia’s Natalegawa who patched up ASEAN’s consensus after Hun Sen damaged it on China’s behalf in 2012. And it is Natalagewa who believes, with the Myanmar coup in mind, that “at this critical juncture for the region, Indonesia must demonstrate its leadership within ASEAN.”

Indonesia’s president Jokowi, rather than trying to rally the region against the coup, will likely continue to focus on domestic economic growth. Not to mention the existential priority that COVID-19 also warrants on his agenda.

So why not task Natalegawa with a damage-control trip around the region comparable the one he took with some success in 2012? He could start with fact-finding in Myanmar. He could then explore an intra-ASEAN understanding that would reassert the core democratic values in the ASEAN Charter while lessening, if possible, the chance that Myanmar will revert to entrenched and fully authoritarian rule. That may be a lost cause. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Although Donald Trump is no longer in office, America is still not safe from Trumpism. But America’s system—democracy—is working as it should. Is ASEAN really a dictators’ club? Or does it, too, when threatened from within, have a system that can at least manage and minimize the damage that is, in Myanmar as I write this, being done?