Assumption hosts CHINA Town Hall

On Wednesday, November 16, Assumption College hosted the fifth annual CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections, a public event open to anyone interested in the status and future of U.S.-China relations. Assumption was one of more than 50 venues nationally that participated in the event and only one of two in Massachusetts. 

In the form of public discussion and question-and-answer session throughout the presentation, Assumption participated in a national webcast featuring Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor during the Carter administration and Steve Orlins, the president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. 

"Zbigniew Brzezinski is counselor and trustee of the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington D.C.," states the UCUSCR's website. "From 1977 to 1981 Dr. Brzezinski was national security advisor to the president of the United States.  In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom ‘for his role in the normalization of U.S.-Chinese relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States.'"

In Assumption's local Kennedy Memorial Hall, Jason Qian began the program with comments about China, including a short video about China's history and culture. The People's Republic of China has a 5000 year history, a one-child policy since 1979 (which favors boys over girls), 10 percent annual city growth (unprecedented in history), has no religious affiliation (a largely atheist country with certain groups dabbling in Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism), has 56 ethnic groups (92 percent are Han Chinese), identify with their unique cultural identity rather than the blanket of Chinese and suffer from water pollution. It is a country of extremes. 

At 7 p.m., the national newscast began with Orlins welcoming all the venues. "We created this program in the belief that U.S.-China relations would be the defining relationship of the 21st century," Orlins stated, "And that getting the relationship right is critical to speed peace and stability throughout the world." 

The "normalization" process, simply described, is the process of restoring normal diplomatic conditions and relations between two countries, and can be used to describe other countries which at one time might not have been friendly but decided to make an accord to relate on "normal" terms again. "It's important to note in this connection that by 1976," Brzezinski stated, "the relationship was getting frozen. There was increasing tension in the relationship. It wasn't moving forward." However, later on in the 70s, President Carter decided that needed to change. "On December 15, 1978," Orlins said, "[the United States and China] announced that they would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979. They did, and the rest is history. As National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, throughout his entire administration, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski conceptualized and drove this process." 

China was willing to normalize its relationship with the United States because its leader "Deng Xiaoping realized that he needs normalization with the United States to launch China on a different socioeconomic course, and that gave him some incentive," Brzezinski said, "And we welcomed China's transformation, we weren't too worried about it, until recently when fear started rising that this transformation was made in China for the first time a serious rival to the United States. And now people are speculating the possibility of not only rivalry but a kind of hostility pervasively embracing the entire relationship."