Times reporter discusses China

By Antonia Novak

It's unfortunate that college courses don't come with a refund.

This was the joke New York Times writer David Sanger offered in regards to the current financial crisis and its affect on students.

Sanger, who graduated from Harvard University in 1982, is the Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times. Writing extensively on foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation and the presidency, Sanger has twice been on a Pulitzer prize-winning journalistic team.

Welcomed to Santa Clara last week as part of the President's Speaker Series, Sanger spoke of the financial crisis and the loss of America's global leverage. His presentation, conducted in Mayer Theatre last Thursday, focused on issues such as the future of U.S. economics and the effect of globalization on the wealth and power of the country.

According to Sanger, what this financial crisis and loss of leverage means for students is yet to be determined.

"(The world) you've grown up in is vastly different from the world I saw in college," Sanger said during his speech. "The fact is that the rest of the world is growing in significant size."

He added that globalization has posed a threat to American superiority and influence and that it's becoming harder for the U.S. to have the same amount of influence as it did in the past.

Instead, power has switched to China, which owns much of the U.S. debt. According to Sanger, this shift in power is going to have long-term effects on the U.S.

For the past couple of years, countries such as China and India have been preparing themselves for intense global competition. In that time the U.S., according to Sanger, was distracted by the war in Iraq.

The U.S. once was an undisputed frontrunner in global politics and economics. This is no longer the case because the U.S. "can't cover the world as fully," Sanger said.

Other countries have not only prepared themselves for intense competition, but are catching up to the U.S.

For this reason, Sanger said, the U.S. is going to have to reassess international as well as domestic relations. The question if the U.S. will re-establish global precedence is not so much the issue. Instead, it is how the U.S. will function within a globalized world, especially as more counties become more competitive.

To meet the demands of these pressures, Sanger noted that Obama has made more visits to China in the past year of his term, in comparison to the entirety of Bush's administration. Obama, who promised not to pursue a strategy of containment, is pursing dialogue between the two competitors.

In addition to re-establishing open dialogue with China, the U.S. has also been busy building upon the blocks of competitiveness and productivity.

In his speech, Sanger voiced that he believes that college students are the face of future productivity.

"There are some areas where America has got unbelievable advantage -- we are sitting in one of them," Sanger said, about his speech within a college auditorium. "How many students from around the world are clamoring to get into Chinese college? Not many. How many do you know are clamoring to get into American colleges?"

Sanger left leaving a certain amount of responsibility to college administrations and the national student body. "The questions is how are we going to tap the output to use it most effectively," he said.

Contact Antonia Novak at anovak@scu.edu.