Dear Mr. President,
Thanks for your reply to my last letter on the currency conflict between the US and China.
Right now many people in the west are quite anxious about the rise of China. Many people in China are very skeptical about the US 's intention towards rising China. From what I stand, Sino-American relationship is heading towards a collision course. There are plenty of brinkmanship but not enough trust in this relationship. Would you agree your summit with our President Hu this February is a significant achievement of brinkmanship but not much mutual trust?
But the future peace and prosperity of the world has never weighed so much on our two great nation's shoulders. As of 2010, the United States has the world's largest economy while China's economy is the second largest. China has the world's largest population while the United States' population is the third largest. The two countries are the two largest consumers of motor vehicles and oil. They are the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Our job creation and wealth creation heavily rely on each other. The future of global low carbon economy lies in our hands. Whether the world focuses on economy and deficit-cutting or arms race lies in our hands. Can we accomplish any significant progress without each other's cooperation?
So dear Mr. President we can not discount the huge importance the US and China's relationship implies to the world. We cannot afford letting confrontation prevail and cooperation wither between our nations. But to achieve an efficient and productive relationship between us, we are facing some serious challenges:
1. We have a huge imbalance between monetary exchange and ideas exchange among different nations. Here let's talk about the US and China. The US buys and China sells 334 billion dollars worth of goods in between them in 2010 but the ideas the people of these two countries have about each other are still dominated by stereotypes and conspiracy theories with too much cold war mentality and not enough updated and first-hand interactions among cross-culture minds. The huge imbalance between monetary exchange and ideas exchange is the hotbed for the rise of excessive nationalism, confrontation, conflict, two-faced brinkmanship, and even wars--or to say arms race at least. To address this huge imbalance, we will need not only the globalization of goods, services, and capital; but also the true globalization of ideas exchange. We will not only need to encourage people to consume each other's goods and services, but also encourage them to consume each other's culture, ideas and perspectives. The free trade of ideas will greatly facilitate free trade in an economic sense.
2. The rise of nationalism in both China and the US should be closely watched: In the case of the US, if the democracy can't offer a channel to balance the emotional deficit derived from economic crisis, the collective anxiety and frustration will seek out nationalist outlets to direct their angers and pursuit. In the case of China, nationalism seems the only legit high ground for people behind the iron curtain of fragile freedom of speech to relieve their anger over marginalization in widening income gap and self-esteem deficit between China's sudden economic might and relatively incompetent international presence. This nationalism movement can go on hijacking the democracy and even the authoritarian regime if it goes unchecked. Nationalism is an infectious virus. We are too economically intertwined but too emotionally detached from each other. Distrust and destruction will set each other ablaze and fuel each other's ambition of collision.
3. The decentralization of governance and diplomacy is inevitable. WikiLeaks, FaceBook and twitter have changed the landscape of democracy and diplomacy in a very profound way. Certain stakeholders fell poorly represented by the government and its foreign policies. This phenomenon is what I call representation deficit. In this age of FaceBook, representation deficit can be easily manifested into national consensus, movement and in some extreme cases, anarchy. How can democracy and diplomacy evolve to stay ahead of these challenges without comprising too much core values and interests?
These are the reasons why I feel the sense of urgency to mobilize the ideas exchange between the people among nations to address the imbalance not only on our balance sheets but also on our mindsets. One of the best ways to mobilize the ideas exchange is citizen diplomacy. Nation branding and corporate diplomacy is great and very traditional way of doing things but it's hard to cultivate the emotional connection between different nation's citizens through TV screen, newspapers and press conferences. With the access to FaceBook, mobile phones and cost effective international travel, we should encourage people to interact with each other more directly, bond together, face the challenges and seek solutions together. Citizen diplomacy is the humanization of diplomacy.
Dear Mr. President, without ideas exchange, materialistic prosperity is merely a castle built on the sand. 10 years ago, I can never image to establish a dialogue with a world leader like you; you have shown me what citizen diplomacy can do. In citizen diplomacy, I can see the same hope and change you championed in your presidential campaign. “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, “To this day, the prophecy from President Lincoln still rings so true.
Dear Mr. President, we are at the crossroad of a new era, let free and open society prevail. We won’t roll back globalization; we shall push it further across borders, across skepticism and stereotypes, across iron curtains among cross-culture minds. We will push it further into the renaissance of freedom, free trade, and global prosperity.
Below is President Obama's response to my letter:
From: The White House - Presidential Correspondence <email@example.com house.gov>
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 5:20 PM
Subject: Thank you for your message.
To: dee firstname.lastname@example.org
This article originally appeared at Beijing Royal School. Copyright 2011.