Travel far but real tests lie at home

The municipal government of Chongqing, in China's southwest, has reportedly drawn up a new plan to train its public servants - with some 200 to study in management schools abroad, and another batch to swap offices with their counterparts in the more developed coastal cities.
In total, according to a report in the Chinese language press, as many 10,000 Chongqing public servants will be recruited for the re-education.
This is more inspiring news from the most populous Chinese city (with a population exceeding 30 million) than news about any development in monetary terms.
Part of the reason there has been so much discrepancy between rich regions and poor regions lies precisely in the local officials' educational background and international exposure. Although Chinese leaders have been chanting the slogan of "Open up to the world" for the last 30 years, and thousands of the nation's best-educated men and women are admitted by schools in more developed places every year, and billions of yuan is spent every year in foreign language teaching nationwide, in many official organizations, people still can hardly communicate with overseas visitors.
Now the report from Chongqing, occupying only a small space at the bottom of an inside page of the China Business News last Tuesday, seems to indicate that the city is ready to catch up with the coastal business centers in innovative development programs.
Looking back at China's modern history, one is amused by many anecdotes about how government bureaucrats dealt with foreign things and ideas.
One of the most intriguing cases was of a mission sent by the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911, but of course, during its last breath of life) to study Western parliamentary systems.
The officials on assignment did not want to make the trip because none of them knew about its significance, and also for practical reasons, none of them spoke a foreign language. But they had a way to show off their accomplishment, which they had probably figured out before they embarked on the trip. It was to "outsource" the writing of their report to a Chinese scholar renowned in Western studies.
It is not that China never wants to import new knowledge and practices from abroad. Since the late 19th century, whenever it was not interrupted by war or revolution, the central government would dispatch some people to study abroad.
But what has prevented those people from making due influence, as can be seen from the late-Qing's fake study tour, is the lack of interest from the bureaucracy. There are always officials who do not like changes or do not know what to do if they really have to let go the status quo.
What is at issue is not so much how much they can learn about any specific thing. Nor is it that they must make China a copy, in one way or another, of a textbook example cited by their foreign teachers. The key is to broaden the horizon, and to find new perspectives.
In the particular case of Chongqing, a city deep in the Chinese heartland, it would be nearly silly if officials just claim, like so many of them used to in so many Chinese cities, that they want to make it an "international financial center".
It is a city built on the meeting point of two major rivers - the Yangtze and Jialing, with a strong manufacturing tradition, and is close to China's newly-found massive natural gas resources. But some of its 30 million people are among the most unfortunate in the country, still belonging to its poorest communities.
The real challenge and best way to take the challenge are still to be defined by the municipal leadership. It is a task that requires an extraordinary ability in social studies, in comparing notes with other cities and other nations, and in managing relations with the citizens.
That can never be figured out by the officials if they just sit in their offices and keep handling their everyday chores.

 

—The Daily Mail, China Daily news exchange item