Posted by Huiqiang Zhao on
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
All of my classmates and professors are getting more and more excited because we are about to get onto a plane to visit a country that has 5000-years of history. As we know, China is a country that is changing every day. In order to keep up with the change, we are reading books like “China Road”, “Source Code China” and many articles from Harvard Business Review. Besides this, our professors invited knowledgeable professionals to share their experiences and perspectives about China; such as Bill Stafford, President of the Trade Development Alliance, Joe Borich, President of the WA State China Relations Council, and Karl da Gama Campos, IB Development Manager, WA State Dept of Commerce. I was impressed that Washington State is the No.2 in exports behind California, but we are the highest per capita. Also, about 30% of the jobs in Washington state deal with international partners. As China is surpassing Japan to become the second largest economy in the world, I believe that we should pay more attention to the impact of China’s growth. After this tour, I expect to gain a deeper understanding of how China competes with the rest of the nations strategically, especially in Information Technology. Another interesting thing is we have a gift team who handles the gifts buying. One thing we decided to get is M&Ms with SU logo.
When I asked Joe Borich to use three words to describe China, he said, “Big, important and permanent”. We, the future business leaders, must go out of our conform zones to observe, practice and share in order to be competitive.
Please check back soon for more updates.
If you want to get more information about this China Study Tour, please visit http://ecis.seattleu.edu/rao/cst2010/
Written by Derek Zhao, Email: zhaoh@seattleu.edu