andy i met at the university of northern iowa's jepson symposium. each of the last two years he shared a dinner table with me, he was very kind to my students, and then he gave a marvelous talk last year about the chinese economy and the business relationships between the united states and china. tell us a little bit about how your interest in china developed and what you're going to bring to our conversation today. andy: thank you f introduction. i actually first went to china by pure chance. i'm from boone, iowa and studied at northern iowa for my undergraduat e degree in supply chain management. at the end of my degree, my adviser at the time encouraged me to take an internship in china in the international logistics department of a large chinese state-owned enterprise. i didn't speak a word of chinese, and i'd never been to china, didn't know anyone on the entire continent but sucked into china. it's a fantastic culture, interesting language, food, everything. just went back to the us and worked in the corporate world for awhile, and then quit my job and moved back to china to study chinese full-time at china northeast university of finance and economics in dalian china. that was really when my love affair started. leon: married a chinese woman? andy: i married a chinese met in england actually at graduate school. leon: developed some business interest in chinese? andy: that's right. leon: share with us too. andy: i started a company called trans solutions back in 2007 and we do new product development and supply chain management mainly for clients in the us. since i've taken that position at uni i have sort of stepped back to a certain degree. my wife does the majority of the work but i still do a lot of chain mapping and these sort of things as well as the strategy side. we travel back and forth to china on a very regular basis. leon: ling zhang is a colleague of mine at cornell college and recruits international students for us. tell us a little bit about your background, how you happen to come to cornell and what kind of work you're doing now. ling: sure, thank you. i am originally from china. i studied in china for over 20wh there and raised there. i came to america for my graduate degree. i got my master's in america and my doctor's degree in education in south dakota. i've been living in the midwest for over 10 years. i just kind of fallen in love with cornell college, and moved here and have been working at cornell college for over a year recruitment means that you go to china as well and you're meeting with chinese students and making an effort to persuade them to come and study here. ling: correct. i visit high schools and colleges, and organizations in china. i pretty much go to china twice a year. leon: i think from our conversation you're extending yourself personally too to help some of these chinese students and other interna here in the united states adapt to life in the united states. ling: correct, because like i said, i was originally from chinese so i was an international student myself. i understand the frustration and concerns that they have or the difficulties that they are going to encounter when they first get here. also, i'm the faculty adviser for our chinese student association at cornell college. david: that's right. leon: member of the history department, is that right? david: right. leon: your principal interest as i understand are japan and korea, but you've also had some experience in study in china. talk a little bit about this. david: you're right. i got into the field back in the, i'd say early 1990s when a lot of the issues we're talking about today were about japan. of course, many of the prediction of what was going to happen regarding japan didn't happen. in those specialist, and i also developed korea as a sub specialty as well. you can't escape china if you're the east asia field. when i was in graduate school i had to pass phd exams in chinese history. even though i primarily go to japan and korea, i have been to china a few times, and in fact just a few months ago i was there. leon: i'd like to say just a few words about myself as well. at director of what we call the mcwethy program for economics, business, and public policy. i teach computer science full- time but i have this second role where i engage students in questions like those that we are discussing now. david you mentioned the worries in this country about japan, are you thinking as the 1980s, 30 years ago in that time frame? david: yes. leon: people wor that that more directed, more planned economy was going to overtake the united states. is that what's that about? david: sure, yes. i mean there was a very famous book that came out about japan in 1979 called japan as number one by ezra vogel at harvard university. the prediction was by the year 2000 japan would have long since surpassed the united states in economic terms. there was books coming out that every american was going to be working for a japanese and that the japanese we're going to controlled so much us debt, the japanese were a threat, the trade deficit was a huge problem. all of these fears of japan, or some of the things that you hear about china today, people were saying about japan back them. very few of them, if any, have come to pass. leon: i was moved to propose this discussion to our producer, because my perception is there is more conversation this year and not only in the united states, but in europe and elsewhere about immigration, about trade, abou anxiety not just in our own country. i worry that we're not learning as much as we could from the experience of other people and from our own history. do you see some of these patterns too? can you comment on that, that we learn on what we should from models of history or models about other countries? andy: sure. that's an interesting question actually because the us and china are no way military allies, and that is very different environments here. there are certainly stark similarities between the rise of japan and the rise of china, but there are very important differences as well. do you care to comment on some of the differences that you've seen in your work? david: you're right about that. certainly, in terms of military rivalry, that's another topic. the united states of course has permanent troop presence in been talk certainly with the obama administration doing this pivot to asia in which the united states was going to be more assertive in the region to try and stem the rise of china. of course right now there's a lot of talk about the south china sea and the naval rivalry there. in that sense yes, in a political sense i think yes, japan and china relationship to the united in terms of economics which i think there's a lot of similarities. more what i was getting at was i think that a lot of the fears of china economically are exaggerated just like a lot of the fears regarding japan in the 1980s and 1990s were exaggerated and haven't really played out. just a lot of these issues in general about trade deficits being such a big problem are much older even at the 1980s and 1990s, that it's a perpetual aspect of economic relations there's almost always a trade deficit. it's almost as normal as anything. leon: ling, tell us a little about what these chinese students are looking for when the come to the united states. what the attractions are for an american education. i think many of our neighbors, to the extent that they have interaction with chinese people, it may here in iowa. ling: sure. i think chinese students, they're looking for a good education, and of course america has the well- known, top world education and research. also, i think for a lot of chinese students they are not just here to get education and stay here, a lot of them actually are look at getting a really good education in america then go back and find a really good job. worked as ministry of education in china. i talked with her pretty frequently for the mission and the recruitment purpose. she just told me, she said the ministry of education, which means the big department that oversee all the education- related issues, has just announced that they are encouraging all the student in china to do this international come and do a full degree seeking program, but also they encourage the chinese students to do exchange. go to america, go to europe, do one semester or one year. that's why i think we will see a lot of colleges in america doing this two plus two or three plus one kind of an exchange program. does that make sense? leon: sure. i'd like to ask you now about what surprises those who what you think americans might be missing when they visit china. many americans are now travelling to china and getting some picture of the country but they might be missing some of the part and pieces. to get you started here i want to tell you a little story and then you respond to this. ling: okay, yes. leon: i studied computer science, so in graduate school a large fraction of my classmates were international and many of them from chinese. who called himself gary. i never inquired very much about where he was born. i could tell what his ancestry was but i didn't know where his birth place was. he called me aside, we were at the end of the week friday afternoon just kind of shooting the breeze when the week was done, 4:00 on a friday afternoon. he asked me, "leon" he said, "why are our classmates borrowing money to go to graduate school?" we all had teaching assistantship, so even the least well supported of us had a stipend and rent and our tuition was waived and so on, you could live a modest lifestyle. some of the american students didn't think that was enough, they were borrowing so they could live a little bit higher. gary had come here, in the first year he lived in an apartment he shared with five other students and he had a grocery budget of $50 a month or something, it was rice and cabbage. the second year he bought a used honda civic, he year he traveled around the united states to visit the national parks. he sent half of his stipend and helped his parents retire. he is showing me his statements from fidelity investment, all of mutual funds he has. he said, "why are americans ..." he had a completely different perspective of the world. that's my story. what are your stories about this contrast of expectations, chinese coming in the united states, americans going to chinese. we'll comment on this. ling: sure. i will start if you guys don't mind. i think that's changing because in the past as i said 20, 30 years ago, the students you've seen, the chinese students who were studying in america, they are here to do a graduate program. most of them are graduate of assistantship. actually, let's say back then, 20 years ago, if they don't have a graduate assistantship it's going to be hard for them to get a visa. now you're going to see the trend of the student from china who are middle school, and some are looking at elementary school even. like i said, it's very different because credit card has never exist probably 15 years ago in china, but now i think the chinese people are kind of getting used to the concept of credit card and borrowing the money. when i was growing up, i mean that's the philosophy we have, if you don't have the money don't spend it. you always have to have some kind of saving. with this new anymore. they want to borrow money, they want to use the credit card. a lot of times since china has been doing the one child policy for a long time, so a lot of the families nowadays, if college, they are the one child in their family. the parents doing the saving, and the grandparents also help out. they use all this money to sponsor the student to receive a good education. leon: my friend gary borrowed money from an american professor he met in china, got to the united states without a penny left in his pocket, had to call the dean to get a ride from the airport to the university. that's how he sta anybody's. you go from boone iowa to china, tell us about some of the surprises, the contrast that you experienced. andy: again, i lived in dalian in northeastern china, it's on the peninsula right in between beijing and north korea on a peninsula surrounded by sea on three side. i was one of the only foreigners in the city that i lived in. i lived in the northern suburb of the city called , so the free trade area. back then it was very stark difference, this was back in had just recently graduated from undergrad who is actually considered fairly well off compared to a lot of my co-workers who had been in the industry for 10, 15 years. speaking to this change that's happened with the students your experience is very different from what we see from students today at the university of iowa. i would say, you and i ... all across the board. ling: cornell college as well. andy: cornell college as well, it's very dif now, not everybody is poor. it's still a very poor country. i think that's one of the misconceptions for americans, they think of china they think about this very, very strong, wealthy country where everybody is rich. that's not always true, there are very rich people in china, but there are even more poor people still today. the rich ones gets to come over to the us in some cases, and the poor ones we don't see quite as much unless ling: exactly. andy: what are some of the misconception s you'd like to correct here david? ling: i don't know about misconception, but i'd actually just sort of echo that. i think that's one of the main mistakes americans make when discussing china. i think they've even done polling on this, a lot of americans assume that most chinese are as rich as most americans, or maybe even richer. of course most chinese are still quite poor, but at the same there might be a middle class in china the size of the united states. means there's still a billion people who are not anywhere near that standard of living. that's a very important point that americans need to remember when discussing china, is that ... people talk about china being the second largest economy in the world but that's not per person by any stretch of the imagination. leon: i told you a story ling, i have some chinese in the family, my brother married a chinese immigrant. they went to at that time at least there were some parts of china where westerners were seldom seen. what is the experience across the country of chinese engagement with the outside world? do i make myself clear here? andy: yes. my wife is also from a rural. her hometown is what they call is in guizhou province, in a poor town guizhou province. the first time i went back to see her ancestral home and see her grandparents and this sort of peopl, my autograph because they'd never seen a caucasian person before. that was only maybe five years ago, five or six years ago. this has changed in beijing, shanghai and shenzhen guangzhou. those areas certainly have changed their perception of foreigners. it's much more regular to see foreigners and interact with them, but in the poor me that every time you go back it's like a different world. tell us something about the pace of change you see in this country. ling: every time i always visit the beijing and shanghai, even with beijing and shanghai i mean like you go to a place in beijing and you're very familiar with that area, the next time you go there and you're like, "whoa, what just happened? i'm so lost." there's like another 10 new buildings just sitting there. its economy has increased rapidly in most of the major cities in china. leon: we're through, we're going to go next here. let's talk about the investments the two countries are making in one another. is anybody prepared to share something with that? maybe we're relying on andy too ling: right. leon: tell us a little bit briefly and we'll get back to these folks as well. andy: coming back to your point on trade and how things have gone in the investments that we're making. one important thing to remember that american investments in china, they're going there for different reasons. if we have an investment that's an american firm who is investing in china just to get cheaper labor, that usually has a negative impact on american jobs and it's usually overall a negative there for market seeking purposes or for national resource seeking, all of these sort of things, then it's generally a positive relationship with the home country and the host country for that fti. in the past we saw a lot of american companies going to china to get cheaper labor, we don't see that as much anymore, we're seeing that very seldom in fact. now we're seeing companies go to china for market seeking opportunities, so to sell their leon: the various trade deals that have been proposed around the world try to assure fair trade, by which we mean comparable standards for the treatment of labor, for the protection of the natural environment, for the protection of intellectual property and so on. here is another story to maybe provoke some response. i have a colleague who just completed a tour of duty for an american company in china and has returned home with some heal the pollution in shanghai. we're all dismayed by what she saw as a lack of respect for intellectual property of her company among their business partners in china. as well americans see sometimes pictures of people coming in from the countryside, living and working under very difficult conditions, working very long hours living in very crowded dormitories and so on. they wonder the living conditions, the working conditions, what you've seen of this, do you have some experience there. david: i'll just bring a historical perspective to it which is i think ... it has been historically part of the industrializati on process that countries go through that. my hometown is st. louis, missouri and there's a very famous photos of st. louis in the 1920s where it's 12 noon and it's pitch black outside because of the pollution. as, of course the united states got became a more important priority and they cleaned up the air. i was talking to some other former students who had lived japan and they were talking about living in a part of japan that a company had dumped mercury in the water and it caused all of these birth defects. this was like in the 1960s and 1970s in japan, and that incident spurred the japanese to make the environment more of a priority. balance the question of environmental protection with getting people out of dire poverty. a lot of the times they make the, at least for now they make the decision to harm the environment and then decide once we're wealthy we can clean up the environment. whether that's right or wrong, it's certainly a debatable point, but it's certainly not unprecedente d. i mean all of the countries that have successful usually put development first until there are some sort of environmental catastrophe that pushes them to make the environment more of a priority. i don't know think china is particularly unusual in facing these issues. andy: the interesting thing though is that china is at the tipping point where the eastern provinces in the east coast is actually shifting away from that. if you look at the industrial policies of places like guangdong and especially the city of dongguan put it in perspective in southern china. they've actually kicked out a lot of their dirty industries and said, "you either need to go abroad and find some place else, or you need to go inland where they'll still accept it these certain industries" because it hasn't reached that level yet of economic development. there's actually a big push in dongguan specifically to automate a lot of their processes. the government is giving big grants, like million dollar gra useless labor and clean up the environment. we're seeing a big transition right now in china and there are big incentives for these companies to engage. if that's where inflection point right now on these provinces of china. leon: ling, you talked to me about entertaining visitors from china, you're in iowa, and how some of them are surprised, aghast, dismayed. they see american highways with potholes, they see americans surprised by this. my brother was surprised when he went to china to see some very expensive automobiles driven under conditions where ... his response was, "if i owned a car, i would not be putting at that kind of risk." people are parking in these very tiny spots and driving on chaotic highways and so on. can you comment on what your chinese friends are seeing when they come to the united states, again the contrast been here for over 10 years so i'm kind of used to it. whenever we have to the chinese guests they're always impressed by how blue the sky is, and how clear the air is. they are for sure were not impressed by the condition where quality of our highway or the road, or the transportatio n kind of system. i just had a visitor from china and i took her to chicago. a said, "well, just you know, get her on the subway and you know, do that." i'm like, "i know parking is a pain in chicago, but i would just take my chance, i would take, you know, take her with my vehicle." i'm almost a little bit embarrassed for her to see the subway system is chicago which is not as bad as the other cities to be honest in america. she's from beijing and over there the subway, i mean you guys have been to beijing so you know. you just really can't compare. whenever i have guests they always just kind of like surprised and said, "whoa, you know, what we see on tv is always like, oh, america being, you know, this top country and have this all this "wonderful stuff." now, you know, everything we've seen on tv is true" especially when they see the our half hour, and maybe in our concluding remarks is anybody want to venture any predictions or prescriptions for the future? what would you say there david? david: i think people should probably just expect things to more or less continue as they are. like i said, throughout the history of us-asia relations, americans were on trade deficits with asian ago, it was true 100 years ago, it's probably going to be true whoever is elected president of the united states. i just would say that so much of it is comparing apples and oranges, and that we are a consumer society, we like to consume, we have the money to consume, our government allows us to consume in ways that other countries do not. no particular tweaking of a trade deal is going to change those basic facts on the ground. leon: we make you adviser to the actually president xi jinping, the president of china, he did indicate for the next five years he said we should expect that chinese gdp increase no less than 6.7%. leon: we've got just less than a minute here so we give you the last word here andy. andy: sure, thanks. i think that it would be prudent to look at china as strategic all cautious about the future. china's corporate debt is about 160% of gdp and that's scary. leon: thank you for joining us, i hope we've all learned something about china. we have in our community some experts and we'll continue to learn more. thank you very much. day, republicans and democrats are making one that includes fundraisers for both senate candidates in eastern iowa. investigators in northwest iowa say a ground up battery killed dozens of cows this week. and after flooding hit cedar rapids last month, businesses on the 'wet side' of newbo came together to support recovery. you're watching kcrg-tv9. now, from your 24 hour news source, this is the kcrg-tv9 saturday morning news. new this mr after a vehicle hit her and then drove off in downtown cedar rapids. police say it happened outside of the doubletree hotel on 1st avenue around 1:30 this morning. an ambulance took the victim to saint luke's hospital for treatment. police have not released her condition and are still looking for the driver. an osage man who kidnapped and beat a woman will spend the rest of his life in