NC State was chosen from among 73 other venues to broadcast last Thursday’s live webcast, CHINA Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections featuring former president Jimmy Carter.
About 15 students attended the webcast on Centennial Campus. The event aimed to educate college audiences all over the country about maintaining relations with China. The topics of discussion ranged from climate change, to poverty alleviation, to public health.
Using the hashtag #CTH2014, the audience could interact with Carter and ask questions via Twitter. Among the questions, one student in Nevada asked Carter about President Barack Obama’s statement assuring the United States would defend Japan over China regarding the dispute about the Senkaku Islands.
“If there was a war to be broke out between Japan and China, which would be a terrible tragedy,” Carter said, “the United States is bound by treaties to intervene on the behalf of Japan. It could spark a third world war.”
China and the United States lead the world in many areas, including pollution production, carbon dioxide emission, economies and GDP, Carter said in the webcast.
Carter also addressed the amount of Chinese-American students studying in the United States, and vice versa. He said more than 250,000 Chinese students are currently studying in American universities.
“In the last 10 years, we have quadrupled the amount of American students studying in China,” Carter said.
This comes as a great benefit to both countries in terms of education, tourism and trade relations, Carter said.
Alberto Berrizbeitia, a freshmen in international studies, said he met Carter on a plane to Los Angeles a few years ago. Berrizbeitia said he decided to attend the webcast not only because of this personal relation, but also because he is interested China’s growing role as a world super power.
“China is a pretty big world issue today, and they are growing way too quickly,” Berrizbeitia said. “Eventually, they are going to debunk the United States as the global economy leader.”
Following Carter’s webcast, Thilo Hanemann, an expert on Chinese investment in the US discussed the Chinese economy with the attendees.
Within the last decade, China’s share of the global GDP has grown from four percent to 12 percent. China’s outward forward direct investment, which is how much they invest in buying land, companies, etc. in other countries, has grown from 0.1 percent to 6.1 percent in the last decade, according to Hanemann.
“North Carolina is one of the major recipients of these new Chinese influences of money,” Hanemann said. “There is a high chance that one of your family members, friends, or colleagues is actually working for one of these companies that is Chinese-owned.”
In North Carolina, there are about 50-60 Chinese-owned companies. Among them include Epic Games, AMC, Lenovo, Smithfield Foods, Murphy-Brown and Dill, according to Hanemann.
“I didn’t realize how many investments China made here and vice versa,” said Jackie Gonzalez, a freshmen in political science.
Carter ended his webcast stating that China and the U.S., the world’s global superpowers could connect through some of today’s issues like ISIS and Ebola.
