China's Jiang makes a visit to Penn today

The Chinese president will only stay on campus for 30 minutes, enough time to laud a deal with Penn. It's the first thing today on Ed Rendell's typically nonstop schedule: "3:25 p.m.: mayor to greet Chinese President Jiang Zemin at airport, gate 55." But today, the mayor's is not the busiest itinerary in town -- Jiang's is. The Chinese president is scheduled to land at 3:25, speak at Drexel's Mandell Theater at 5, appear at the University Museum's Harrison Auditorium at 5:30, be at the Liberty Bell at 6 and leave for New York City shortly thereafter. And while Jiang's planned trip to Penn's ENIAC museum is now "unlikely," according to Wildes, and there is even talk of him skipping his trip to the Liberty Bell to avoid demonstrators, Jiang still plans to find time to gulp down a few sips of tea with his old teacher, Penn Engineering Professor Emeritus Gu Yuxiu, 95. But Jiang's visit to Penn, while brief, will still draw protesters upset with China's human rights record -- and Penn's ties to the government in spite of it. At a meeting last night, Amnesty International members criticized Penn's long-standing policy of "engagement" with mainland China. While many universities currently host faculty exchanges between the two nations, and many more vie for brainy Chinese students, few -- if any -- can match Penn's high level of involvement. Today, Jiang is expected to acknowledge a new "landmark" joint Graduate School of Education-Wharton School program designed to train the administrators of China's state-owned enterprises in free-market practices. "State-owned enterprises face tremendous crisis," explained Cheng Davis, International Programs coordinator for the Education School. "They cannot compete even domestically, much less internationally." But while many see the initiative as a product of Wharton's international reputation, the Education School has dealt with China longer. In 1981, Davis herself became one of the first Chinese students to receive an Education scholarship. After graduation, she worked at Drexel, greatly enhancing the school's ties to China and meeting Jiang Zemin's son, Jiang Mianhong. In 1993, Penn hired her back. Since then, the school has launched initiatives to conduct education research in Shanghai. And today, while Jiang visits Philadelphia to acknowledge a program she helped create, Education Dean Susan Fuhrman is in Shanghai, helping to organize a collaborative education research effort. Fuhrman will also speak to the International Business Leaders' Advisory Council for the Mayor of Shanghai, in her role as a senior advisor to the Shanghai education commission. "Very, very highbrow stuff. Mucho private planes coming into Shanghai," reads an informal itinerary of Fuhrman's trip. Six schools in the University have ties with China, but it is unlikely that the program Jiang will herald today could exist without the contacts and cooperation of the Education School, which has sponsored faculty exchanges in China since the early 1920s. "We're probably the only college in America with that kind of commitment," Wildes said of the Education-China ties. "Last I heard [Jiang] had 20 or more [invitations to speak]? we're very plugged in."

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