Marty Moseley -

5. What can the U.S. do about it now? Is there a role for information systems in the U.S. strategy? What, if any?

Bishop, D.M. (2005, January 26).  Chinese Students at American Colleges and Universities.  Lecture given at the American Center for Educational Exchange, New York, NY.

Maidment, P. (2007, May 5). Outsourcing Innovation? Forbes.com. Retrieved November 13, 2007 from http://www.forbes.com/leadership/innovation/2007/05/21/outsourcing-china-innovation-oped-cx_pm_0529china.html

If we’re concerned about revealing development secrets to China and other communist countries, it’s too late for that.  We’ve already begun training their top scientists and developing Chinese technology secrets at our expense.  The U.S. doesn’t have to do anything (more) about it, because we already are doing enough.  China is educating R&D engineers at roughly an 18% ROI annually from schools abroad.  In fact, Maidment indicates that 25% of the foreign PhD students in this country are Chinese (2007).  I don’t know the exact numbers of Chinese being educated at American-based graduate universities, but I’ll bet it’s fairly significant.  In fact, according to the Donald M. Bishop (Minister-Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs American Embassy Beijing), in 2005 there were over 65,000 Chinese students in American universities (2005).

However, there most certainly is a role for information systems in the U.S. strategy.  Why is this so?  Because higher education in this country is second to none; American universities are the best in the world.  For now, there appears to be a decline in Chinese nationals applying to American universities.  The rate of decline is between four and five percent annually.  This has been attributed mainly to the progress taking place in the Chinese education system (Bishop, 2005).  In spite of this, the decline doesn’t mean that Chinese universities have attained the status or quality of American schools; it simply indicates that they are starting to develop.  As Maidment states, “China still lags developed nations in the quality of its research overall” (2007).  It’s difficult to speculate what the outcome will be, and what role the U.S. will play.  But one thing is for certain, the quality of American universities will continue to attract the brightest from all over the world.   In having this distinction, our role then should be to advocate education for peaceful purposes.

Rich Thompson -

­What are the implications of this for the United States?

There are numerous implications that can be discussed concerning the United States position on outsourcing innovation.   Companies that are outsourcing their R&D operations to foreign nations are communicating mistrust and disloyalty to IT workers here on their home soil. Furthermore, this stifles the interest of any relatively new company that desires to invest funds in R&D in our home country.  The implications on the economy could be devastating. While unemployment remains the obvious consequence, uncompetitive wages for our foreign counterparts plays a role in the economic horror. Countries such as India and China continue to maintain low wages while producing engineers at an unbelievably high rate. Reduced innovation and competitiveness amongst U.S. companies are implications that will negatively affect our country. The United States innovative market is rapidly declining while foreign markets are making significant gains in R&D operations.

Paul Nodine -

5. What can the U.S. do in order to ensure that China does not reduce our ability to stay competitive?

Maidment, P. (2007, May 21). Outsourcing innovation? Forbes.  Retrieved November 25, 2007, from  

       http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/21/outsourcing-china-innovationoped-      cx_pm_0529china_print.html

Dede, C. et al. (2005, Sep). Transforming Learning for the 21st Century: An Economic Imperative.  Retrieved November

      25, 2007 from http://www.learningpt.org/tech/transforming.pdf

China has increased its new patent ranking to 5^th place, increased its spending on research and development, and produces 352,000 engineers annually …  two and a half times that of U.S. schools (Maidment, 2007).  This has been the effect generated by investing in their universities.  China has quadrupled its number of university students in the last ten years.  This should be a sure sign of what we in the U.S. need to do in order to stay competitive.  China also offers tax breaks and other incentives to attract Western I.T. companies, but it still boils down to having the people with the necessary knowledge.  Dede and his panel proposed the following recommendations “for transforming learning for the 21^st century and for improving our nation’s economic competitiveness” (2005):

            Action Plan for U.S. Economic Development: The K-12 Education Factor

1)       Educating the Public, Students, and Educators on the New Economy and its impact on Education and Lifelong Learning

2)       Constructing a Framework for Economic Transformation

3)       Constructing Powerful Regional Partnerships and Networks to Align Education and Economic Development

4)       Establishing Purposeful Student Outcomes

5)       Moving Organizational Policies and Practices to the Next Level

Based on these recommendations, we need to go much further than investing in our universities.  We need to transform our education system from the bottom up in order to cope with the changing world and economies.

Daniela Tynan -

3. What role will information systems and knowledge-based work play in the future for China and the U.S.?

Information systems and knowledge-based work plays and will continue to play a large role in the future of both China and the U.S.  In our industrialized world, it is innovation through research and development and through knowledge-based work that will continue to bring changes and allow economies to grow.  As Maidment points out: in the mid 1980’s China decided that it was in needed to modernize, and that in order to do so it needed to increase the number and quality of it engineers. (2007); and it set about to do just that.  Now as the article points out: “China churns out 352,000 engineers while the US just 137,000; but the question still exists as to the caliber of these.  “China still sends its best students aboard for advanced studies’ (Maidment, 2007). This much attention and effort being put into increasing the number and quality of engineers points to the increased importance China is placing on information systems and knowledge based work.

Wolf, M. (2005, September 15). Though precedents are ominous, China’s rise to greatness need not bring conflict

        Prospects for peace and prosperity between China and the US. Financial Times.  Retrived November 20, 2007 from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72c3bafa-2586-11da-98dc-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=ebe33f66-57aa-11dc-8c65-0000779fd2ac,print=yes.html?nclick_check=1