Global Brain Movement:
An Asia Perspective
A speech delivered at
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (香港理工大學)
June 17, 2009
Da Hsuan Feng (馮達旋)
Senior Executive Vice President
National Cheng Kung University (國立成功大學)
The great American novelist Pearl S. Buck, who has a well known
Chinese name, Sai Zhen Zhu (赛珍珠), once said that “If you want to
understand today, you have to search yesterday.” Indeed, history
embodies the profound nature of the topic of today’s discussion.
President Tim Tong (唐偉章), thank you so much for bestowing me the
honor of speaking today to the communities of Hong Kong Polytechnic
University on a subject very dear to my heart. I am especially happy to
see that you are now at the helm of a great Asia Pacific institution. No
doubt that while you will carry on the great legacy of the institution
established by your predecessor President Poon Chung-kwong (潘宗光,)
you will undoubtedly broaden and deepen the university contribution in
Asia Pacific in its most critical time, the 21st century.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the title of my talk, Tim, a
world class engineer and the former dean of engineering of George
Washington University, is the personification of the thesis of my talk. In
fact, I am excited to see in 2008 and 2009 many of my North American
friends doing this “Brain Movement” personification thing in the Hong
Kong – Macao arena. They are Way Kuo (郭位), a world class engineer
and former dean of engineering of the University of Tennessee, now
president of Hong Kong City University; Wei Zhao (趙偉), a world class
computer scientist and former dean of science of RPI, now president of
Macao University, and last but not least, Tony Chen (陳繁昌), a world
class applied mathematician, former director of the Mathematics and
Science Directorate of the National Science Foundation and dean of
science of UCLA, and soon to be president of Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology. It is interesting, especially for me, that Tony is
replacing a good friend of mine and a distinguished alumnus of NCKU as
HKUST president, Paul Chu (朱經武), who is unquestionably a world
class scientist and educator!
I should mention also that the President of NCKU, Michael M. C. Lai (賴
明 詔 ) was appointed in 2007, was also for 34 years distinguished
professor of University Southern California.
Such nontrivial high caliber intellectual migration of university
administration from North America to Asia Pacific is demonstrating, in
my mind, two important aspects. One is that their “return” to Asia is
globally and palpably showing the robustness of Asia Pacific higher
education in the 21st century. Another is a serious “loss” to higher
education for the United States. These individuals possess profound
intellectual and administrative capabilities with deep understanding of
Asia. Therefore if they were to hold equally important positions in North
America, they could surely have contributed profoundly to the higher
education landscape where there is strong call for deep and sustainable
connection to Asia Pacific in this century.
Something about NCKU
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not here to sell my home university, National
Cheng Kung University. However, as the senior administrator of the
university, if I do not say a few words about it, my boss, President
Michael Lai, will surely be upset at me. So here goes. Also, allow me to
show you the icon of our university, the banyan tree that was planted by
the Japanese emperor almost a century ago!
Allow me also to place a few photos here depicting NCKU campus.
They are from left to right the College of Medicine (and affiliated
hospital,) College of Humanities and College of Engineering complex,
respectively.
By Taiwan’s standard, National Cheng Kung University is a large scale
university with a long history. It is one of the four leading comprehensive
and research-intensive universities in Taiwan, namely, the so-called 台成
清 交 (Tai-Cheng-Tsing-Chiao), which is short for National Taiwan
University (NTU), National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), National
Tsing Hua University (NTHU) and National Chiao Tung University
(NCTU).
For this talk, among many, there are two issues that are fundamental to
and confronting NCKU in the coming decades which I want to
underscore, and they are directly or indirectly related to the subject matter
of my talk. Since time is short, I will merely mention the essence. I hope
that with this truncated discussion, I can stimulate more discussions from
and among you so that you could deploy your wisdom to assist us.
First is regarding the mission of our university. Education in general and
higher education in particular are built on the mission of improving
humanity’s quality-of-life. With this lofty mission, NCKU as well as
other Asian universities such as HK Polytechnic University are
confronted with profound challenges by the global circumstances in the
21st century. This is made even more so because we are becoming higher
and higher quality institutions.
Let me give you one palpable example. Some of you in Hong Kong may
have heard that Taiwan’s Ministry of Education instituted the so-called
5Y50B program a few years ago. By that it means that starting in 2006,
MOE has provided 100 Billion of New Taiwan Dollars (~ $340 Million
US) of new money per year for five years for 10-12 universities in order
to spur them to become “world class,” which is a euphemism for higher
intellectual distinction.
MOE designated NCKU as one of these universities. In fact, it receives
the second largest share of this funding. Receiving funding of this
magnitude means that we must shoulder greater responsibilities in
ensuring the survival and prosperity of planet Earth. Thus, we must
define one of our most critical missions, if not the only mission, is to
produce a large cadre of leaders with global perspective and passion for
service. If NCKU can maintain her status as the cradle for world class
political leaders, educators, scientists, entrepreneurs, and artists of all
forms from all corners of the world who could make life just a little bit
better for humanity, such as our outstanding alumni Prof. Paul Chu (朱經
武 ), Bruce Cheng ( 鄭崇華 ), the founder of a multinational high-tech
corporation Delta Electronics, Lung Yingtai (龍應台), now a distinguished
professor at Hong Kong University and who is one of the most powerful
political and literary writers of Asia Pacific today, and Lawrence T. Wong
(黃志剛,) former CEO of Hong Kong Jockey Club and at one point was
listed by the second largest English newspaper of Hong Kong, The
Standard, as one of the 20 most influential persons in Hong Kong, then
the day which NCKU can be a world class university is within reach.
Second is about university autonomy (大學法人化). Whenever one talks
about autonomy, one cannot avoid also talk about “governance,”
“accountability” and last but not least “oversight.” For brevity of this
speech, let me just refer to them collectively as autonomy.
In the summer of 2008, nearly after a year since I arrived at NCKU, I
became palpably aware that autonomy was more than a concept; it was
Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE)'s “marching order” for all
national universities. MOE expects within a reasonable foreseeable future
that all national universities shall be operating under the autonomy status,
which means that national universities in Taiwan will undergo a
metamorphosis. Not only will there be fundamental structural alterations
of the manner of how national universities are to operate, there will also
be profound paradigm shift of how they will be perceived within the
society at large.
As it turns out, the perceived urgency of this “transformation” is even
more acute for NCKU because it is expected that one of the first, if not
the first, universities to reach autonomy status is NCKU.
In last several decades of the 20th century, the world saw an explosive
growth of quality and quantity of Asian Pacific universities. Hong Kong
Polytechnic University is certainly an example of this explosion.
However, in nearly all regions in Asia Pacific, this explosion was not
accompanied by autonomy transformation. For example, all national
universities in Taiwan are tightly regulated by the Ministry of Education.
In fact, even private universities are nearly as tightly regulated as well.
Yet, suddenly in the 21st century, autonomy somehow becomes a major
issue. One can only speculate why that is the case. For example, in recent
past, public universities in Japan and Singapore were “corporatized” their
nomenclature for autonomy status. As a good friend of mine who is well
connected to Korean national universities, they are also discussing with
the government about some form of autonomy status in the foreseeable
future. Although in Mainland China with close to 2000 universities, all of
them in one form or another “national” in characteristic, there appears to
be no movement as far as one knows in rendering them to achieve
autonomy status. However, one can envision that within the foreseeable
future, with Mainland universities’ burning desire to become intimate and
integral part of the global academic landscape, they too may have to face
this reality.
Hence, by being the first university in Taiwan to achieve autonomy status,
its success (because failure is not an option) in making the transition will
not only have implications and impact for all national universities in
Taiwan, it can also have implications/impact for Korean universities, and
especially because of cultural similarity, for the massive number of
Mainland universities.
I would just mention that because of the gravity of this transformation,
for NCKU in particular and perhaps for Asia Pacific higher education in
general, the president of NCKU Academician Michael M. C. Lai has
initiated a global blue ribbon panel to assist the university in this arduous
transition.
20th Century is an Epoch Changing Century for the East and the
West
Before I talk about the most important human institutions as far as “brain
movement” is concerned, namely universities, I like to set the stage by a
discussion about the century that all of us has just experienced.
I want to first point out that 20th century represents a special transitional
way the “West” views the “East.” To show this, in my mind nothing can
be more transparent and startling than the two “bylines” of Asian
literature Nobel Laureates, in the beginning and at the end of the 20th
century.
Remarkably, only after thirteen years since the inauguration of the Nobel
prizes in 1901, the first Asian, a Bengali polymath named Rabindranath
Tagore (1861-1941), won the Literature Prize in 1913. According to the
Nobel committee, Tagore won this high accolade “because of his
profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with
consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own
English words, a part of the literature of the West.”
On the last year of the 20th century, in 2000, another Asian, Gao Xingjian
(b. 1940) (高行健), won the Literature Prize “for an œuvre of universal
validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new
paths for the Chinese novel and drama.”
Even to the most casual observer, one could already detect the profound
difference of the tone of these two bylines. For the former, the tone was
due to perhaps the Nobel endeavor was then a neophyte and the Nobel
committee did not realize that it could eventually become a global
phenomenon, or perhaps at the beginning of the 20th century, the
European colonial dominance of Asia was still raging. After all, the
termination of the British colonial dominance of India did not come until
some thirty four years later. For whatever reason or reasons, the byline,
with the phrase “expressed in his own English words, a part of the
literature of the West” certainly has the full throttle of colonialism. Sadly,
it was obviously acceptable to the East and the West at that moment in
time.
The latter at the end of the century, with the byline “has opened new
paths for the Chinese novel and drama” is an utter tone reversal from the
former and is, in the current vernacular, absolutely politically correct!
I believe the change of tone of these two bylines, separated by nearly a
century, is perhaps the most naked demonstration of the fundamental
transformation of the West attitude towards the East. It is a palpable
demonstration that the 20th century is indeed epoch changing for both the
East and the West.
Second Half of 20th Century is an Epoch Changing Half Century for
Asia Pacific
I certainly do not need to remind this audience that the second half of the
20th century is epoch changing for Asia Pacific. Indeed, here we are in
Hong Kong, the personification of this momentous change! In the 1950’s,
Hong Kong was the epitome of the British Asia Pacific colonial prowess,
and today, especially since July 1st, 1997, with reversal of sovereignty, it
is a part of China, and is a global financial epic-center.
In preparing my talk, I was searching for a way to vividly describe this
change. While there were infinite and traditional ways to demonstrate this,
I found a rather personal one. I hope you would allow me to indulge a
little bit of my personal memory lane here to illustrate to you the
profound change of this half century.
If I were asked to identify one singular Chinese who had the greatest and
profound impact in the 20th century, without the slightest doubt, I would
have selected Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) to be that person. At the foot of one of
the peaks of Mount Zijin (Purple Mountain) in Nanjing, there is the Sun
Yat-sen Mausoleum (中山陵). This structure allows more than a billion
Chinese to place the memory of this man in their hearts. Since it is now
such a touristic attraction, I have no doubt many of you must have visited
it at least once.
The above two photos depict the majestic stone-gate of the Mausoleum.
The one on the left, which shows my family (and I will let you guess
which one of the children was me) was taken nearly 60 years ago and the
one on the right is contemporary. What caught my attention of these
photos were not the stone-gate, which clearly has been well maintained,
nor my family, which would only interest me, but the tree on the left, just
behind the stone-gate. Of course, as the two photos show, the tree has
grown significantly, as it should! Nature works!
By any standard of history, 60 years is merely a blink of an eye! After all,
a great university such as Oxford is nearly a millennium! Yet, in the
intervening 60 years for the two photos, the transformation of Asia
Pacific is nothing short of spectacular. Think about it, the little tree of 60
years ago “knew” what we now regard as “ancient” and maybe even
forgotten history:
z Nearly all of Asia Pacific were economically in, at best, the third
world,
z Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the KMT were still more or less in
control on the Mainland, with the civil war between the
Communists and the KMT raging,
z Macau was a colony of Portugal, and Hong Kong, Malaya and
Singapore were colonies of the British Empire,
z Research in universities in Asia Pacific, except for those in Japan
and except for specific areas pertaining to Asian culture, were
not in the least blinking on the global intellectual landscape,
z The world then was NOT IN THE LEAST FLAT!
Compare the above to what the “big” tree of today in the flat world
knows! Little did the “little” tree knew 60 years ago, that a few years later,
China would be experiencing a thunderous change in 1949, in the 60’s
and 70’s, it went through a decade of the devastating “cultural
revolution,” and several decades later, much of Asia Pacific would be
lifted out of poverty, such as the economic miracle of Taiwan and South
Korea since the 80’s and the rapid ascendancy of the China Mainland as a
global economic power. Indeed, Asia Pacific has become one of the
world’s bright spots of economic and intellectual progress.
As you can see, a tree can grow and mature in 60 years. By the same
token, can Asia Pacific grow, which it did in multi-dimensional manner,
and mature as well in 60 years? By mature, I mean if Asia Pacific can
reach economic and intellectual maturity, can it assume the responsibility
of a “grown up” and assume the world’s well being be its own? Any time
one talks about “brain movement,” it is worth bearing in mind this
historical perspective!
History of Universities
My discussion will more or less be science and technology centric, but I
am confident that it is more generic than specific.
It was claimed that the genesis of universities could be traced as far back
as the Athenian School of Greece in BC 384-322 and the Confucius
School (孔夫子) of China in BC 551-479. The more modern form of
university came almost a millennium and a half later, with the founding
of the University of Bologna and the University of Oxford in the 11th
century.
There is an important sidebar of this discussion. Roughly around the same
time (1130-1200), the great Confucianist Zhu Xi (儒學大師朱熹) was the
Subprefectural Registrar of Tong'an (同安縣主簿).
Tong’an is on the Mainland in what is now a prefecture of Fujian
Province (福建省), and is adjacent to the cities of Quemoy (金門) and
Amoy (廈門), and directly across the Taiwan Strait by about 100 miles
from Taiwan. Zhu’s distinction as a significant Confucian scholar and
teacher had rendered that region one of the centers of Confucian studies,
and many organized schools were started then, and continue even to today.
In fact, on the island of Quemoy, there are still such schools, some built
over 500 years ago. If I go by the self-evident truth that the mission of
university education is to enlighten and improve the quality-of-life of
humanity, then what Zhu did then and what followed for the subsequent
millennium could also be regarded broadly as such.
Regarding universities in the “West,” many historians indicated that
universities and cathedral schools before Renaissance were simply a
continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries. These
“universities” were by and large for the purpose of producing clergies and
religious scholars. While such a mission was not unreasonable, it
probably would not fulfill the mission of rendering universities as
intellectual and economic engines in the broader sense of the words.
I should mention that there were (at least) two historical episodes which
gave the indication that Asia’s intellectual and technological strengths
may be more open and advance than Europe before the Renaissance!
For openness, the best example is perhaps the recording of the first
supernova event known to mankind. Today, it is called the crab nebula
(蟹皇星). A supernova event, using modern scientific term, is the remnant
of a thermonuclear explosion, many orders of magnitude larger than the
one mankind exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World
War II (WWII). Chinese astronomer/astrologers carefully recorded its
appearance in 1054 AD. This star, according to the records, was visible
during daylight for 23 days and visible at night for almost two years.
What is remarkable about this event in 1054 AD is not that it occurred at
all. After all, it was “merely” a celestial event. What was amazing that
despite its incredible brightness, there was complete absence of record of
the event in the West! The only known record came from the Chinese and
the Arabs. The lack of any Western record was even more amazing,
considering that not too long after the event, Oxford University was
founded. One could only speculate why that there was “utter silence” in
the West. For whatever the reason was, it clearly demonstrated that the
astronomers/astrologers in China and the Middle East were not constraint
to record any observation of nature as was! To me, this was a profound
intellectual approach to observation, the first step towards a proper
scientific methodology.
For a demonstration of Eastern technology advancement, an excellent
example was the naval power during the Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644). In
the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there was a famous Admiral named
Zheng He 鄭 和 (1371-1433) who commanded seven massive naval
armadas to South East Asia and Indian Ocean. In fact, the armada, the
largest armada has nearly 400 ships (called junks) and went as far west as
the East Africa coast. The ships he constructed were enormous compared
to some of the ships of the West. In the following diagram, a comparison
is made between Zheng’s ship (400 feet) with contemporary ships of
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) ship (85 feet).
When a ship is an order of magnitude larger, the technology associated
with all aspects must also be significantly more advanced.
The superiority of the East began to wane as soon as the Renaissance
began to set in. Indeed, the real transformation of universities came with
the European Renaissance era, which occurred between 14th and 17th
century. In this period, giant intellects began to emerge in the West, and
many are still household names today. For example, the works by
luminaries, such as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Rene Descartes
(1596-1650), Nicolaus Copernicus (1483-1546), Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519) and Martin Luther (1483-1546), are studied by students in
all educational institutions, East and West, of today. With intellectuals
such as this, universities began to mature rapidly.
Let me focus on Cambridge University as an example.
A good friend and colleague of mine, the late Alan Macdiarmid, who
received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and was the 2000 Nobel
Laureate in Chemistry, often mentioned that “science is people!” The
greatness of a university is measured by the people that are/were
associated with it. Based on this criterion, Cambridge University is
manifestly great.
For example, while the greatness of the individuals I listed before
requires no further illustration, I would, however, like to specifically
underscore the ageless phrase uttered by Bacon, who was associated with
the Trinity College of Cambridge. It was in Latin “Scientia est potential,”
or in English “knowledge is power!” Associating knowledge with power
is and must surely be the central theme of modern form of democracy,
and remarkably Bacon recognized it nearly half a millennium ago,
probably well before the concept of democracy was even conceived!
As a physicist, I would be horribly remiss if I did not stress the
fundamental importance of Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), who came
along roughly a century after the above mentioned great men. Everyone
who is even slightly educated in science nowadays would recognize that
Newton published his epic work Principia Mathematica in 1687. This
work launched the world into a new era of scientific methodology.
However, few people today know that Newton held the distinguished
chair in Cambridge University known as Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics. What is remarkable is that this position is currently
occupied by Steven Hawkings, the world renowned astrophysicist. It was
also once held by P. A. M. Dirac, who was one of the physicists
responsible for inventing quantum mechanics, a field of physics which
defined 20th century intellectual and economic achievements.
The above information underlines an important lesson for higher
education. In today’s fast-paced world, with “instant gratification” as the
norm, the accepted age old concepts of “lineage” and “tradition” to build
the underpinning of excellence have often fell by the wayside. This is
especially true today in the world of ranking of universities, at times the
ranking is carried out by for-profit company or companies. In the
prestigious position of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics of
Cambridge University, the holders almost began with Sir Isaac Newton
nearly 500 years ago to P. A. M. Dirac in the early 20th century to Steven
Hawkings of today, and other great scientists in between. Both Dirac and
Hawkings refused the knighthood and thus could not and cannot be
addressed as “Sir” respectively. All were men of supreme intellectual
excellence. As I mentioned earlier, it is “eternally” known that the
intellectual creation of Newton and Dirac literally turned-the-page of
humanity’s existence.
The above are the photos of two important men from the East and the
West. On the left is the photo of Sir Isaac Newton. On the right, is
Shunzhi Emperor (順治帝), the first Qing (清) emperor from 1644 to 1661.
There would be no reason to place these two individuals side-by-side,
except for the fact that Newton was born in 1643 and a year later, 1644,
the new and last feudal dynasty of China began. Indeed, Qing Dynasty,
which closed China’s door to the change that was occurring in the West,
would rule China for nearly three hundred years. This coincidence was as
if history was playing a joke on the East and the West. With Newton, it
was a signal of the birth of an era of open scientific methodology and the
rise of Western dominance of science and technology. With Qing
Dynasty’s close door policy, it signaled the downfall of China’s global
leadership of science and technology!
19th Century
By the time 19th century rolled around, after the intellectual brewing of
several centuries of the Renaissance, European intellectual achievements
literally reached their crowning moments! European universities were
supreme, par none. The achievements were not confined to science and
technology. In the artistic creation, European achievements also reign
supreme.
The above two sets of photos are both serious and amusing.
The first set of photos in my mind represents two of the most remarkable
individuals who define 19th century intellectual achievements. Both lived
short lives, and yet both would live in the hearts of humanity worldwide
and eternally! Both stood on the underpinning of several hundred years of
the Renaissance.
On the left is Sir James Clark Maxwell (1831 - 1879), whose contribution
to human knowledge was the four elegant, almost simple looking
mathematical equations (see the differential-integral equations depicted in
a cup in the second set of photos) that totally describe one of the most
elusive behaviors of nature, “light,” or in more technical terms,
electromagnetic radiations! These four equations are known to the world
of science and technology as Maxwell Equations.
Perhaps the highest compliment of Maxwell’s work came almost a
century later by Albert Einstein who said in 1954, a year before his death,
that “…At that thrilling moment he (Maxwell) surely never guessed that
the riddling nature of light, apparently so completely solved, would
continue to baffle succeeding generations….”
On the right is Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849) whose beautiful and
monumental musical creations are considered as eternal by humanity
worldwide then, now and probably forever! No compliment can beat any
audience who were, are and will be moved at the level of the “soul” by
Chopin’s music.
To me, the intellectual achievements of these two individuals, both as
deep as any human being can achieve, deserve to be mentioned in the
same breath! For that, I put Maxwell Equations and a music sheet of one
of Chopin’s Nocturnes side-by-side, signaling that they are equally
important for humanity.
20th Century
Europe and North America
I mentioned earlier that 20th century is epoch changing for East and the
West. But there is something even more profound that occurred in the
first half of the century. Indeed, if I am asked to give a knee-jerk
perception of the first half of the century, it will be World-War I (WWI)
and World-War II (WWII).
The following haunting photos depict those two horrible human events.
The one on the left showed the military hard wares of WWI and the one
on the right showed the singular event that shook humanity, and that is
the mushroom cloud of the thermonuclear explosion of WWII in Japan.
In hindsight, besides the horrendous human toll, I thought WWI and
WWII gave rise to the most massive and profound “brain movement” the
world has ever seen. Nor will it be repeated again!
As I mentioned earlier, in the 19th century, the intellectual fervor of
Europe was second to none. Universities in Europe were housing the best
of the best the world had to offer. If Europe could remain as stable and as
vibrant in the first half of the 20th century, there was every reason that
such fervor would not diminish in the least. Yet, WWI and especially
WWII, with Hitler’s unimaginable hatred of the Jews, made it virtually
impossible for Europe to continue its great intellectual growth which it
enjoyed in the previous four to five hundred years.
Meanwhile, while Asia and Europe were devastated by the scales of war
human had not seen before, North America was like a castle protected by
a “moat” called Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was the place on earth that
was a pillar of stability.
The best manifestation of the “moat” protection was the aerial attack by
the Japanese on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941. As the
architect of the Japanese naval commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
said after the attack, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping
giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
My guess is that the reason the Japanese military machine attacked Pearl
Harbor and not San Francisco is simply because its military might just
could not reach the west coast of the United States. For the military
technologies at the time, the Pacific Ocean was de facto a perfect
protective moat for the US Mainland from the Japanese, just like the
Atlantic Ocean was one from the Germans.
As I mentioned, while the human toll of WWI and WWII is unparalleled
in the history of humanity, North America, especially United States
benefited greatly in one of the world’s most massive “brain movement”
because of them. Indeed, thousands upon thousands of the best of the best,
in nearly all fields of the intellectual world, from the artistic to the
scientific, were lifted lock-stock-and-barrel all across Europe and in a
short period of half a century to be literally “dumped” on United States,
especially on campuses of many universities.
If there were an individual who absolutely epitomizes this massive
“brain movement,” surely Albert Einstein, who needs no introduction,
would “fit the bill!” If not because of the thunderous reputation of
Einstein who rendered everyone else pale in comparison, scientists such
as John von Neumann from Germany, Herman Weyl from Germany,
Theodore von Kármán from Hungary, Edward Teller from Hungary,
Eugene Wigner from Hungary, and Samuel Goudsmit from Holland,
Konrad Bloch from Germany, Rudolph Schoenheimer from Germany etc.,
would be also blinking on the radar screen of the intellectual landscape.
The presence of any single one of these intellects would bring supreme
excellence not only to the university they were associated with, but the
United States in general.
I am confident that if there were no WWI and WWII, who literally
reduced Europe to ashes, intellects such as those I listed above would not
be building their careers in North America. Although the reasons why the
US research universities became envy of the world in the early 20th
century are complex and multidimensional, one of them would
undoubtedly be the fact that they were utterly impacted in a highly
nontrivial manner by intellectuals with supreme excellence. A good friend
of mine once said that “any one of these powerful and awe inspiring
intellects could transform a mediocre university into a great one!”
Asia and North America
Asia at the beginning of the 20th century was a completely different story
from Europe. Except for Japan, who initiated a social and political
reformation by Emperor Meiji 明治維新 (1868-1912) in the mid-19th
century, all of Asia were either under European colonial domination, such
as India (whose territory includes what is today Pakistan and Bangladesh),
or at the verge of the collapse of feudalism, such as China. Higher
education infrastructures, especially in Asia Pacific, were at best fledgling,
if exist at all.
Let me say a few words about Meiji reformation. The impact of this
reformation was, and still is, deep and broad and deserves much in depth
detailed discussion. Let me just say here that this effort led to something
great and something horrible.
“Great” was because one of its aim was to create wealth. Although it did
not utilize the modern concept of creating a knowledge economy to create
wealth, de facto it did that by creating universities. Two of them are today
Asia’s most outstanding universities of the 19th and 20th century. They
were the former Imperial University of Tokyo and Imperial University of
Kyoto (now both dropped the prefix “Imperial”). Today, they are
regarded some of the top universities in the world. Many leading scholars
and political leaders of Japan were products of these two universities,
such as the first two Japanese Nobel Laureates and truly great scientists
Hideki Yukawa, 湯川秀樹 (Nobel 1949, left of the below photo) and
Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, 朝永振一郎 (Nobel 1965, right of the below photo)
and the most recent three Nobel laureates in physics, Yoichiro Nambu (南
部 陽一郎,) Makoto Kobayashi (小林 誠) and Toshihide Maskawa (益川
敏英.) Talk about “lineage” and “tradition”!
“Horrible” was because one of the aims of the reformation was to build a
modern military power. Without proper constraint, this runaway military
engine caused untold human toll in the world in the 20th century.
I would like to give two interesting individuals in this early period whose
information I am familiar with which will show that the change in Asia
Pacific is beginning to emerge.
The first is a Chinese gentleman named Yung Wing (容閎). He is depicted
on the left of the above two photos. Yung was, as far as one knows, the
first Chinese student to study in a US university, and graduated from Yale
College in 1854, well before the Civil War (1861 – 1865), and slightly
before Meiji reformation and China was still ruled by the last feudal
dynasty Qing (清).
According to Yale’s website
(http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=3595):
“….After returning to China, Yung Wing established the Chinese
Education Mission, through which 120 Chinese students came to the U.S.
in the 1870s. Most of these students went on to play important roles in
China's modernization.”
This was clearly the greenest of green shoot of the transformation of Asia
Pacific!
The second whose photo was depicted on the right of the above two was a
gentleman named Wong Tsoo (王助). Wong was born in 1893 in Peking
(Beijing) and died in 1965 in Tainan, Taiwan. In the last ten years of his
life, he was a faculty member of my university. In those ten years, he
educated nearly 500 outstanding engineers and industrial leaders of Asia
Pacific. One of them is Lawrence T. Wong (黃志剛) whom I mentioned in
the beginning of my talk.
In many websites in China, Wong Tsoo is known as the “Father of
Boeing” (波音之父). In 1997, in a speech to the National Academy of
Engineering, Boeing’s then CEO Phil Condit made the comment that
“Bill Boeing… hired (1916) Tsu Wong as the company's first
aeronautical engineer to replace Boeing's original business partner,
Conrad Westerveldt. An engineering graduate from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Tsu Wong became the first chief engineer at
Boeing.” (I should mention that the official spelling of Wong’s name was
based on the way his name was spelled in his Master of Science thesis at
MIT.)
Wong’s life was truly legendary and could be the theme of not only a
speech, but a conference! Let me just be brief here and outline the
relevance of this talk.
First, I find it fascinating that in 1916 Wong received a Master of Science
degree in aeronautics from MIT. Two aspects of Wong’s achievement
deserve a few comments. First, one should remember that it was merely
13 years before, in 1903, that the Wright Brothers demonstrated to the
world that man could fly with mechanical machines. And yet, a decade
later, MIT had already developed an educational program to educate and
train future aeronautical engineers. This tells me more about MIT as a
fast-on-its-feet and forward looking institution then the subject of
aeronautics. This is a lesson for any aspiring university today!
Second, young Wong did not come to MIT to study something more
traditional and probably safer as far as a future career was concerned,
such as mechanical engineering. He came to study something so new and
certainly perception wise, maybe unsafe as a career. This could indicate
that these younger generations of Chinese in the turn of the century, and
Wong was as good a representation as one could find, were very hungry
for new and cutting-edge knowledge and were already looking for
technological challenges. This group of young Asians was gazing at the
Western scientific and technological prowess and was hungry to find the
first opportunity to join this intellectual march. This was indeed an
indication of what were to come in the 20th century and why Asia Pacific
could transform so rapidly as soon as the conditions were ripped!
Tsung-Dao Lee 李政道 and Chen-Ning Yang 楊振寧
It is impossible for me to talk about the emergence of Asia Pacific
without mentioning Lee and Yang, the two gentlemen whose photos I
presented above (Lee on the left and Yang on the right.)
I would be dishonest if I did not say that they have influenced me and my
generation of scientists, especially physicists, profoundly and directly or
indirectly. After all they were the two Chinese whose monumental work
was awarded the 1957 physics Nobel Prize. But that is not the reason why
I wanted to specifically say a few words here about them. After all, since
1957, many other Chinese (or more precisely Chinese Americans) also
achieved this great scientific milestone with equally profound
discoveries.
I would be dishonest if I did not say that they have influenced me and my
generation of scientists, especially physicists, profoundly and directly or
indirectly. After all they were the two Chinese whose monumental work
was awarded the 1957 physics Nobel Prize. But that is not the reason why
I wanted to specifically say a few words here about them. After all, since
1957, many other Chinese (or more precisely Chinese Americans) also
achieved this great scientific milestone with equally profound
discoveries.
What Lee and Yang did, and I am quite sure that was not the reason they
pursued the physics which won them the accolade, was far more than
physics. They touched the soul of an entire generation, or several
generations, of Chinese worldwide. Remember, they won it in the
mid-fifties. As I mentioned earlier, in the first half of the 20th century, the
world was in turmoil. Asia Pacific was no exception. On top of that, after
centuries of falling behind in nearly all aspects of intellectual efforts,
science and technology for sure, and economically the Continent was in
tatters, Asians had sunk into a third world mentality, a mentality where
one would assume that great things could not happen here or to us!
Therefore, what Lee and Yang did was exactly “what the doctor ordered”
at that moment in history in Asia. The announcement of the two winning
the Nobel Prize froze the time! It was a shot of supreme confidence in the
arms of all Chinese, wherever they were and whatever political
persuasion they adhered to! Since Lee and Yang, no Chinese scientists
winning any accolades in any fields could achieve such profound impact
on the entire generation.
Thus, to paraphrase what President Roosevelt said on the day after the
Japanese assaulted Pearl Harbor that December 7 1942 is “a day which
will live in infamy,” I would say that the day which the 1957 Nobel Prize
in physics was announced, it is “a day which will live in fame!”
Peking University
Peking University (北京大學) is one of the premier universities of Asia
Pacific in the 20th century. It was founded in 1898. There is a point I like
to make about this university which I believe maybe an important lesson
for universities in Asia Pacific even today.
I am sure you all are aware that Asian universities are heavily under the
grips of “global rankings” of one sort or another. There are basically two
that the academic world talks about. One is carried out by the Shanghai
Jiaotong University School of Education (SJTU) and the other was
originally carried out by the Education section of London Times, and now
has transferred the effort to a for-profit company known as QS. In one of
the recent rankings, Peking University was ranked somewhere between
203-304 and 36 by SJTU and London Times/QS, respectively. With such
a significance difference between the two rankings, the information
transferred is what we scientists may refer to as having a “very large
signal to noise ratio.”
In a speech I delivered in SJTU in 2005, I made the following comment
about ranking, specifically about Peking University. I especially
underscored the importance of two early presidents of Peking University:
Cai Yuan-Pei (蔡元培) (on the left below) and Hu Shi (胡適) (on the right
below.)
Both held the position of president of Peking University in 1916-1927
and 1945-1948 respectively, and in my opinion not only transformed
Peking University, but laid the foundation of higher education of China.
It is worth emphasizing that during Cai’s reign at the helm, Hu was
already a member of Peking University and was personally deeply
involved in many of the moments that made deep impact on Chinese
culture in the 20th century. I said that
“Indeed, with Cai’s leadership, Peking University became not just the
soul of Chinese universities, but in fact Chinese history and culture of the
20 century. How do we measure the “intangible impact” of Peking
University on the culture of China, with Bai-Hua (白話 modern Chinese)
movement, May 4th movement (五四運動), and so on. Is it even logical
to consider that Peking University is not a “World Class University”
when it has profound impact on Chinese culture, with nearly quarter
humanity, for a century?”
Tsinghua University, Peking Union Medical College, National Cheng
Kung University,… United States’ “Super Marshall Plan of the 20th
century, without a plan and without credit!”
Just as Peking University, Tsingua University (清華大學) and Peking
Union Medical College ( 北 京 协 和 医 学 院 ) are also two outstanding
Chinese universities. The fact that they are outstanding is well known.
What is less well known, or not known at all, by many people in China
and/or United States is that both are in fact founded by the United States,
either by US Government funding or by an NGO.
My point here began with two photos. On the left is the main building in
the “old” campus of Tsinghua University in Beijing. On the right is the
main building on the Mall of the University of Illinois in
Champaign/Urbana. The fact that they look virtually identical is NOT an
accident.
According to Tsinghua’s website, “Tsinghua University, located in the
northwestern suburbs of Beijing, was established in 1911 on the site of
"Qing Hua Yuan" - a former royal garden of the Qing Dynasty. Funded
with part of the "Boxer Indemnity," it was at first a preparatory school
called "Tsinghua Xuetang" for those students who were sent by the
government to study in the United States.” In fact, some of the Boxer
indemnity was used to build the building shown above and the
architectural drawing was based on the one in Champaign/Urbana. This
tells us that one of the best universities of China today was founded by
the United States government! I suspect that few, if anyone, in the US
State Department today are aware of this fact!
Another remarkable but not well known history is the founding of
China’s best medical school, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC).
Throughout the 20th century, PUMC produced many main medical
personnel of China. According to Wikipedia, “The Rockefeller
Foundation…. in 1913 - 1914 ….(recommended) that the Foundation through a subsidiary organization, should assume financial responsibility
for the College.…..” On the left of the following was a photo I took at the
main hallway of PUMC’s main building. As you can see, it has a bust of
Mr. Rockefeller! Once again, the best medical school of China today was
founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, an NGO of United States.
According to a recent press release of Purdue University, “Purdue was
chosen through the Foreign Assistance Act of 1950 to help provide
assistance to developing countries…. When asked to choose an American
university to work with his institution, the college president at the island’s
Tainan Provincial College of Engineering (now NCKU) picked Purdue
because of its engineering and science reputation and because of its
graduates who had returned to China to make significant contributions.”
So for the period between 1950 and 1962, with a grant of $3 Million
(today equivalent of somewhere between $30 Million to $60 Million),
Purdue University sent some 20 faculty or so annually to NCKU, erected
some state-of-the-art buildings, and instill in the university the culture of
a modern university. In our visit to Purdue University recently, President
Lai of NCKU said to President Cordova: “Unquestionably, the decade of
Herculean intellectual and material assistance from Purdue University to
National Cheng Kung University in the early 50’s transformed it to play a
fundamental role as a powerful economic and intellectual engine during
Taiwan’s miracle growth in the late 20th century and build the foundation
to become one of Asia Pacific’s research intensive comprehensive
universities in the 21st century.” So the underpinning of NCKU as a
modern university was erected by Purdue University, well before
globalization was even a concept!
Prior to 1949, the Christian missionaries founded thirteen universities in
China. They are in North China: Yenching University (now the campus of
Peking University) and Cheeloo University (Jinan, Shandong Province),
in East and Central China, they are: University of Nanking (Nanjing),
Ginling College (now the campus of Nanjing University), Soochow
University (Suzhou), University of Shanghai (Shanghai, my mother’s
alma mater), St. John’s University (Shanghai, my brother-in-law and
sister-in-law alma mater), Hangchow Univeristy (Hangzhou) and
Huachung University (Wuhan, middle part of Yangtze River). In Western
China, there is West China Union University (Chengdu, Sichuan Province)
and finally in Southern China, there are: Fukien Christian University
(Fuzhou), Hwa Nan College (Fuzhou), and last but not least, Lingnan
Univeristy (Guangzhou). It should be that the legacy of these universities
was spilled over to Taiwan after 1949. For example, one of the best
private universities in Taiwan, Tunghai University ( 東 海 大 學 ), was
founded by this legacy. These universities pumped out a significant
number of economic and intellectual pillars of China.
Literally hundreds of thousands of students in the 20th century received
either US Government or universities scholarships to pursue advanced
degrees in US universities. This trend is continuing even in the 21st
century. While many remained in North America after they completed
their studies, many did return to their native countries in Asia Pacific. In
fact, the economic and intellectual miracle growth of Taiwan and South
Korea, two economic tigers of Asia, in large part is due to the returning
students’ contributions to their native lands in the latter part of the 20th
century.
After WWII, United States initiated a very successful Marshall Plan to
“reconstruct” Western Europe. It was a US Government plan, with a
name, Marshall, the US Secretary of State under President Truman,
attached to it, and a well defined funding of $13 Billion associated with it.
For that, the United States received full credit. Yet, the effort I mentioned
here about US assistance to Asia Pacific throughout the 20th century,
which de facto is a “Super Marshall Plan, ” without a plan, had no name
attached to it, and no designated funding from the United States
Government, was in fact a disorganized but massive effort that
transformed the landscape of Asia Pacific in a hundred years. It is
difficult to imagine what Asia Pacific would be like today if United States
made a concerted effort in the 20th century not to allow this “Super
Marshall Plan” to be carried out!
There is another very important paradigm shift in the 2nd half of the 20th
century which profoundly affected all aspects of life in Asia Pacific today.
The best picture to depict this shift is as follows, it is the hand shake of
President Nixon and Premier Zhou En-Lai in Beijing Airport on February
21, 1972. Compare this with the refusal of handshake by Secretary John
Foster Dulles with Zhou nearly 20 years before, this was indeed the
handshake of the century! As the old saying that “a photo is worth a
thousand words,” I do not believe I can come up with another photo to
better depict perception of “sweeping away of the Red menace.” Please
remember that this photo was taken in the beginning of the 70’s. Is it
totally serendipity that all the economical development of Asia occurred
after that “sweeping?”
I say not!
With improved economy throughout Asia Pacific, and with modernizing
political systems, it was only inevitable that for a region where education
reigns supreme, better universities can and will be created. So it is not
surprising that Asia Pacific universities are today blinking on the global
higher education radar screen. We are in the lecture hall of one of them
here!
Therefore, with Asia Pacific now emerging as one of the intellectual and
economic powerhouses, one could ask the following intriguing question:
Is it possible in the 21st century to duplicate or have another Super
Marshall Plan? For example, is it possible that with many of the newly
founder intellectual powers such as Tsinghua University, PUMC, NCKU,
and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and many others in the entire
Asia Pacific, collaborating with traditional US intellectual powerhouses,
it is conceivable that one could transform other less fortunate
nations/regions, or another continent, such as Africa, in the 21st century?
Since “Super Marshall Plan” had proven to be so successful in the 20th
century, there is no reason to doubt that it might not work in the 21st
century!
Immediately after his election as the President of the United States,
Barack Obama pronounced that one of his missions is to rebuild United
States reputation worldwide as a proactive nation to assist humanity to
achieve better quality-of-life for all. It does seem obvious that relearning
what United States had done for an entire century in Asia Pacific via the
“Super Marshall Plan” and projecting what such a plan can impact
humanity in the new century could be a very important and giant step in
that direction!
The Flat World Landscape
We entered the 21st century literally with a “bang,” with new global
challenges facing humanity’s survival. It is also a century of the “Flat
World,” as Thomas Friedman would say. Unlike a century ago, many
Asia Pacific universities are now an integral part of the global elite
academic institutions. In this scenario, do we need to bear additional
responsibilities? If so, what are they?
In the final part of my talk, please allow me to touch on a few issues. I
raise them for the sake of, as the old Chinese saying, “拋磚引玉” or throw
out a brick to attract a jade. The issues I will discuss here are by no means
exhaustive. They merely represent some that are on top of my mind at
this point.
Understand the New Position of Higher Education
了解高等教育的地位
A successful higher education institution is a robust and dynamical
human organization. It is constantly evolving and transforming. To be
great, it needs not only to keep abreast with societal demands and
changes, it must be ahead of them. To use a well used cliché, it must be
relevant! Let us compare the two universities I mentioned earlier as the
first universities the world had known: Oxford University and the
University of Bologna. Both have nearly a millennium of history. In
perception and in reality, Oxford University still remains as one of the
great universities of the world. Why is that? Well, the reasons are
complex and multidimensional. One of the reasons, I am sure, is because
Oxford University has been able to adapt its operations to the demands of
the modern world. It can move with the dynamical changes that are
required for being a world class university of today. The ability to
reinvent itself is clearly a lesson to be learned by all fledgling and
aspiring universities in Asia Pacific today.
To build modern universities requires the development of new
areas/disciplines. I mentioned early in my talk that to recognize and move
quickly to develop new and relevant disciplines marks the success of MIT
as an outstanding institution.
Let me mention one area which in my mind is critical for a modern
university to be relevant. For the entire 20th century, one of the priorities
in higher education in Asia Pacific was science and technology. This was
perhaps partially due to the fact that the East was so far behind the West
in this area and thus there was great enthusiasm to want to “catch up.” In
fact, immediately after the collapse of the “Cultural Revolution” era, the
motto in China was 科學救國 or “let science save the nation.” With this
“call to action,” it is not a surprise that many higher education institutions
in Asia Pacific deployed “science” and/or “technology” (such as the one I
am speaking at today, University of Science and Technology of China, or
USTC, in Hefei, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, or
HKUST, in Hong Kong, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology, or KAIST, in South Korea, Nanyang Technological
University, or NTU, in Singapore and National Taiwan University of
Science and Technology, or NTUST, in Taipei) as names of their
universities, thus signaling their primary but not exclusive concentrations
of development. Indeed, it is clear to the world that the scientists and
engineers produced by Asia Pacific universities now are plentiful and by
and large of high quality. Indeed, the economic successes of the past
several decades of the region are partially related to this production.
In the 21st century, although universities in Asia Pacific should continue
to pursue with vigor science and technology as a mission, it is apparent
that with the dynamical changes that are occurring in the region, such
emphasis is no longer adequate. The economic and intellectual
transformation of the globe in general, Asia Pacific in particular, is
placing new, broad and deep demands on universities in the production of
new workforces often beyond science and technology. For our discussion,
please allow me to point out one particular demand. The demand is to
educate and train a new workforce which recognizes the importance of
public policies.
Perhaps the best example of an outstanding public policy decision was
the formation of the National Science Foundation of the United States.
Right after WWII, a great American named Vannevar Bush, a US senior
science and technology administrator who was responsible for the War
Weapons program called Manhattan Project during WWII, realized that
to sustain R&D for the United States, which was important for the
country’s education and economic well-being in the post-war period,
successfully convinced the administration to create what is now called the
National Science Foundation whose mission was to fund “curiosity
driven research” in US universities.
Bush realized that in order to promote research excellence in universities,
Federal Government should and must play a pivotal and fundamental role.
There is a well known cliché which says that “imitation is the best form
of flattery.” Indeed, if you look around Asia, where the National Science
Council of Taiwan, Natural Science Foundation of China and National
Science and Engineering Foundation of India all have NSF flavor, you
would immediately realize how fundamental is the concept of having an
NSF-like institution for any aspiring nation!
The Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua
University (Beijing) Dr. Xue Lan (薛澜) made the following succinct
statement to define the discipline of public policy: “As a discipline it
seeks to offer answers to fundamental questions such as how best to
mobilize and allocate public resources, organize and coordinate public
organizations, formulate and implement effective public policies, and
provide quality public services.”
The above mentioned example tells us in a most transparent manner that
making the right public policy could be as important, if not more
important, than science and technology. I am pleased to notice that there
is now increasing recognition of the importance of this area in Asia
Pacific universities. Most recently, for example, Li Ka-Shing Foundation
( 李 嘉 誠 基 金 會 ) has bestowed 100 Million Singapore Dollars as
endowment to the Lee Kuan-Yew School of Public Policy of the National
University of Singapore. These fledgling activities all across Asia Pacific,
exemplified by NUS and Tsinghua University, are pointing to the
recognition that as relevant universities in the 21st century, to ignore the
importance of public policy will be at the detriment of the institutions.
New Opportunities for Asia Pacific universities
After I arrived in Taiwan nearly two years ago, I discovered to my utter
amazement that there is a great deal of opportunities awaiting
development. Let me give you one such example. It is an extremely
interesting story and the content deserves a talk by itself.
For me, the story begins with the third Presidential debate between Nixon
and Kennedy on October 13, 1960. The theme of the debate was about
two little islands off the shore of the Mainland called Quemoy and Matsu
(金門-馬祖.) These two lslands were part of the territories of the Republic
of China then, and still are now. I counted from the text of the debate
(and I hope I did not miscount) that Quemoy and Matsu were mentioned
sixteen times by the two debaters. It’s sort of the “Joe the Plummer” of
the 1960’s!
As I have touched on in the beginning of the talk, Quemoy had a history
almost a 1000 years. As an amateur historian, I have divided it into four
main eras.
The first era is what I refer to as “ancient southern Fujian culture,”
which centers on Zhu Xi (朱熹). Zhu’s presence in the region made the
region then, and now, one of the centers of Confucius studies.
The second era is what I refer to as “ancient southern Fujian culture,”
which centers on General Cheng Cheng-Kung ( 鄭成功 ) (1624-1662).
General Cheng’s base was around Quemoy and Amoy (廈門), which is
now called “Kin-Xia 金廈,” where he was able to dominate the maritime
at that time. In 1687, Quemoy established a Wu Jiang College (浯江書院)
to revere Zhu Xi. I mentioned earlier, Sir Isaac Newton also published his
epic mathematic treatise Principia in 1687. Finally, although National
Cheng Kung University was named after General Cheng Cheng-Kung,
interestingly, not everyone at NCKU is aware of this legacy.
The third era is I call it “modern southern Fujian culture,” which begins
with the latter part of the 19th century to the 21st century. During late 19th
century, which was near the end of the Qing Dynasty, life was extremely
hard for southern Fujian people. Hence many immigrated to Southeast
Asia to seek a better life. Today, a significant fraction of the overseas
Chinese (華僑), while most have become loyal citizens of their country of
residence, still maintain deep emotional ties to their ancestral homeland,
such as Quemoy!
The fourth era is the complicated and ever evolving relationship between
Mainland China and Taiwan, which started in 1949 and is still one of the
most intriguing spots of the world today. The debate between Nixon and
Kennedy was about one of the episodes of this period. Recently, Prof.
Michael Szonyi of Harvard University wrote a book about Quemoy with
the title “Cold War Island.” It gives a very interesting and complete
historical account of Quemoy.
Quemoy today is like the economic seat of a three legged stool,
permeating in the deep cultural heritage of a thousand years of Confucius
studies. The three legs are Mainland, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. If for
some historical reason, Quemoy became part of the Mainland, then today,
there would be no deep emotional ties between Taiwan and Southeast
Asia, and the situation between the two shores of the Taiwan Straits could
be significantly different from what it is today. Quemoy could be the
heart of a Jin-Xia-Nanyang super-life-circle (金廈南洋大生活圈) and the
opportunities offered to higher education institutions of the region are
boundless.
Recently, the four presidents from both shores of Taiwan Straits,
Chin-Cheng Lee (李金振) of National Quemoy Institute of Technology,
Haydn Chen (程海東) of Tunghai University, Chong-Shi Zhu (朱崇實) of
Xiamen (Amoy) University and Michael M. C. Lai (賴明詔) of NCKU
(the four persons from left to right in the following photo) met and
developed the following manifesto for collaboration:
“In the current landscape, Quemoy is faced with political, economical,
sociological, educational, cultural and environmental transformation.
Viewing the situation macroscopically and regionally, we have invited
experts and leaders to this Summit to 'consider the future of Quemoy,' to
measure its pulse, and to contemplate its sustainable development.
Leveraging the Quemoy issue, we will reflect on the directions of
humanity development of Taiwan, Mainland China, Asia, and last but not
least, the Globe!”
Understand Position of Taiwan in Asia Pacific
了解台灣在亞洲的地位
As a “newcomer” to Taiwan in particular, Asia Pacific in general, I have
been intrigued with Taiwan’s position in Asia Pacific. As a physicist, my
modus operandi is always to look for a model. I think I found an
intriguing one and would like to share with you briefly. The model for
Taiwan to emulate could be Switzerland.
The following two maps show the geographical positions of Switzerland
and Taiwan.
For Switzerland, it is surrounded by the “big four,” namely United
Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany. For Taiwan, it is also surrounded
by the “big four,” namely Japan, South Korea, Mainland China and the
new economic power, Vietnam.
What are the Switzerland lessons to be learned here?
Well, the big four in Europe are known to distrust one another.
Switzerland is known to be a political and cultural neutral ground. It is
also historically politically stable. In fact, even during WWII, Switzerland
remained as a neutral country and an oasis of stability, surrounded by
brutal chaos! Such neutrality has served Switzerland well. For example, it
is probably a reason why the world’s only super advanced
multi-nationally funded research center, CERN, is located in Geneva, and
not in London, Paris, Rome, or Berlin. For many decades since WWII,
CERN may be the only research center in the world that could go
toe-to-toe with the best research centers in the United States. Today, it
has even surpassed them.
The above three photos depict CERN, ETH and IBM Zurich, the three
icons of Switzerland.
With such an outstanding research center in CERN, with some of the best
universities in the world located in Switzerland, such as ETH in Zurich,
and some of the trans-national industrial research centers, such as IBM
Zurich, the CERNs, the ETHs and the IBMs have powered Switzerland to
be one of the economically and intellectually most advanced nations of
the Europe, if not the world. That is surely a lesson to be learned by
Taiwan.
Another truly remarkable aspect of Switzerland is that one should not be
surprised to find a Swiss who could speak English, French, Italian and
German. Indeed, it is a nation of truly multi-culture and multi-lingual!
Since coming to Taiwan, I have often wondered what would Taiwan’s
position be like in Asia Pacific in particular and the world in general
today if in the genesis period of economic awakening in the early 70’s,
there was a vigorous and robust policy in Taiwan to turn the population
into bilingual? Should the multi-lingual success of Switzerland be a
clarion call for Taiwan’s population?
Mainland and Taiwan
At this moment, Mainland and Taiwan are entering a new era of détente,
with increasing and intertwining interactions, economically and
intellectually. The best manifestation of this interaction occurred on
NCKU’s campus a few weeks ago in which a Kun-Qu (崑曲) Opera
Troupe from Suzhou, China, made three performances. Kun-Qu has its
genesis around five centuries ago, during the Ming Dynasty. The
performances were held in the largest auditorium with a capacity of about
1000 on campus, and were attended by extremely enthusiastic and
wall-to-wall audiences from all walks of life from the community.
A question I was asked by my friends in the West often was “what
Mainland and Taiwan will be like in the foreseeable future?” While the
question is intriguing, it is well above my pay grade to provide an answer.
In the Presidents’ Forum on “Globalization of Universities in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Macao and Mainland China,” organized by Hong Kong City
University down the street, I made an attempt to answer this question as
best I know how. Of course, based on what I have discussed in this
speech, it is not a surprise that my answer would be as follows:
“Lastly, if higher education institutions from above mentioned regions
can base their collaboration on history, and render our 5,000-year
culture as the underpinning, then, I believe this will bring about
tremendous implication and progress for “Promoting Chinese culture’s
impact on the world and enhancing collaboration among Chinese
universities in a global era.”
In a sense, what is eternal is the inherent culture that is buried in the soul
of every one who inherited it! It is the only aspect of human existence
that can withstand the test of time! I gave the above answer in Chinese, so
please allow me to give the Chinese version below.
“最後假如兩岸四地高等教育可以把歷史作為大學合作的基石，同時用我們五千
年的文化作為合作的目標，我相信這對「在國際化大背景下提升中國文化的世界
影響與加強中國大學的合作與進步」會有很大的啟發。＂
Epilogue
Asia Pacific in the 21st century is unquestionably one of the most exciting
regions of the world. Asia, in general, is also making incredible strides. It
is no wonder that more and more universities in this region are becoming
some of the best in the world. I am especially excited to notice that one of
the best presidents of universities in Asia Pacific, Shih Choon Fong,
former president of National University of Singapore, had recently taken
on a new challenge to become the founding president of King Abdullah
University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.
This “possibly” epoch altering move by President Shih signals the
extension of the higher education excitement of Asia Pacific to the
western end of the continent. If the KAUST experiment is successful, and
judging by the determination and support it received from the Saudi ruler,
it will in all likelihood be so, it could be a very important prototype of a
higher education institution that is deeply rooted in Arabic, Asian Pacific
and Western culture. It could signal what higher education institutions
could be like worldwide by the end of the 21st century: a cauldron of
multi-cultural human organization.
What will Asia Pacific in particular and Asia in general be like, say in the
beginning of the 22nd century? I do not have a crystal ball to tell you. I
should mention that just after WWII, my father was a foreign
correspondent of China’s Central News Agency stationed in New Delhi.
On January 19, 1946, he interviewed the new Prime Minister of the newly
independent India, the Honorable Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. During the
interview, Nehru uttered 12 memorable, farsighted and profound words to
the world via my father’s interview, which were
“If China and India hold together, the future of Asia is assured.”
Motivated by this tremendous vision, in my speech to the National
Academy of Sciences in Washington DC on September 27, 2007, I said
that
“Imagine that perhaps one day in the future a person can actually hop on
a bullet-train in Seoul, Korea for Mumbai without having to show once
his/her passport to anyone! Imagine the economic explosions and
expansions, for the region and the globe that can come from such a
scenario. Imagine the improvement of the “quality-of-life” for all people
in the world if Asia Pacific and South Asia, with more than half of the
world’s population, propelled by India and China, and assisted by United
States, become Asia Union in the 21 century! ”
Imagine if this were the goal, outstanding universities such as Hong Kong
Polytechnic University must shoulder significant responsibilities in
reaching it!
Charles Dickens 狄根斯 (1812 – 1870) wrote in the opening paragraph of
his epic novel A Tale of Two Cities that
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the
epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct
to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period
was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities
insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative
degree of comparison only.”
Thank you Mr. Dickens for writing about our era in such vivid terms!
And thank you so much ladies and gentlemen for your attention!