For a cogent review of the coming leadership in China’s next Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), set to assume power in the fall of 2012, read “The Battle for China’s Top Nine Leadership Posts” by Brookings Institution Thornton China Center Research Director Cheng Li in the Winter issue of the The Washington Quarterly. Li expects that seven of the nine PSC members will step down, leading to an unprecedented situation in which “the principal figures responsible for the country’s political and ideological affairs, economic and financial administration, foreign policy, public security, and military operations will be mostly newcomers.”
With a unanimous floor vote on October 6, Senate Resolution 201—“Expression of Regret for passage of discriminatory laws against the Chinese in America, including the Chinese Exclusion Act”—was approved in a bi-partisan move led Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). The Committee of 100 is part of the 1882 Project Steering Committee, which spearheaded this Resolution and its companion in the House of Representatives.
1882 Project Steering Committee and organization team members with Sen. Scott Brown (7th from right) and Rep. Judy Chu (6th from right). C-100 members Charles P. Wang and Michael Lin (3rd and 4th from left). [Photo by Gino Wang]
The purpose of the Senate and House Resolutions is to acknowledge and express regret for legally sanctioned discrimination against Chinese during the Exclusion era, when the U.S. Congress passed a series of laws that singled out Chinese immigrants for exclusion and violated their civil rights.
A far-ranging profile of C-100 Chairman Dominic Ng appeared in China Daily on December 2, “Bridging the East and West,” a play on Ng’s roles leading East West Bank and the Committee of 100. In the profile, which focuses on his life story and achievements at East West Bank, Ng also explained why he devotes so much time to the Committee’s activities:
“Although it takes a lot of time from my business, it's not a waste of time,” Ng said, "because the Committee of 100 has the same mission as East West Bank."
Hang Lung Properties Chairman Ronnie Chan has written about the U.S. and China in two recent opinion pieces. In the November 15 Financial Times, Chan compares the American and Chinese views of freedom in “The West is in Danger of Frittering Away its Freedom.” Chan says there is too much freedom in the American economic and political realms, where “in the name of efficiency, western capital markets have gone wild as recent cries for more regulation attest,” and “in politics excessive freedom is making the U.S. government dysfunctional.” Chan praises Beijing’s gradual reforms and loosening up, writing, “Although still too restrictive, China is at least moving in the right direction of liberalization.” He concludes: “Both must make changes to prosper in the future. Both must recognize that to call one standard of liberty the universal value is hubris; and to impose it on others is to rob them of freedom.”
