China Planning Network (CPN)
China Week 2008 Opening Ceremony
Commissioner's Remarks
Dear friends of China Planning Network, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Good morning! Welcome to the CPN China Week. I thank you all for
your tremendous support that makes this event possible.
The CPN China Week 2008 is the 5th year continuation of CPN’s effort to
fuse western knowledge on urban development with China’s unprecedented
urbanization experience. It packages six main events: Housing
Conference, Transport Conference, Planning School Open House,
Cross-Cultural Education Roundtable, City Resilience Roundtable, and
Sichuan Field Trip.
I will
introduce them more at the beginning of their corresponding sessions.
Here I would like to share with you some of our thinking on the design
of the China Week and the growth of the CPN as an organization.
The key question we had at the beginning of the preparation is: what
kind of speakers do we want to invite? The uniqueness of China's
socio-economic circumstances renders it extremely difficult to find
direct experts from the West specifically on China and specifically in
the urban fields, such as housing or transport. We decide not to limit
ourselves and welcome three types of speakers:
I) Scholars on housing or transport and specifically on China
II) Scholars on housing/transport but not specifically on China
III) Scholars on behalf of an institute which has interest in China
although they themselves are not necessarily experts.
Some of you are type 1, many of you are type 2 and a few of you are type 3.
All three are important but they contribute in different ways:
Type I: they study China's housing/transport issues directly and
both their research methods and contents are useful. But there are
minimal amount of westerners who belong to this category. This is
exactly one of the reasons we organize CPN —to interest and cultivate
more of the Type II scholars to become Type I by exposing them to
China's urban issues and intriguing them with the complexity of it.
Type II: they consist of the majority of the experts in the urban fields. They contribute to CPN in three ways:
1) They can present to China the variety of models that urban
housing/transport are managed in world cities with different context
and conditions. We encourage everyone in China to look at the
possibilities before concluding which are relevant and which are not.
Both stories of success and failures are useful. Even for those
irrelevant at the first sight may trigger thinking by others for ideas
that are useful to China.
2) We regard China both as a subject of observation and a field for
experiment. The more localized and context-specific the subject is, the
more interesting it may be to the world. The rich contradiction and
complexity of China's urban issues could be the fountainhead to inspire
Western scholars in their own studies.
3) Of Type II scholars, those of you who have accepted our invitation
to come to Beijing today are the ones with higher probability to
convert to a Type I :--)
Type
III: Each year, we invite quite a few leaders of organizations from the
world such as MIT, Harvard, TRB, ACSP, UITP, UN, WB…etc. Not all of
them are experts on China per se. But their active involvement
exemplifies two things: they bring forth to China the whole
organization's resources and attention; and they bring back to their
organizations more enthusiasm for their members to care for and study
China.
A more
important question we ask ourselves is what is CPN? This is a more
different questions. We have not reached the perfect answer yet but
here are some thoughts.
At
the very beginning, some of my closest friends joked on me, “Jinhua,
you are hosting carnivals!” “Yes, carnival is important. China Planning
Network is a network of people. To let everyone talk to each other is
of value.”
Later,
some say “You guys are brokers.” “Yes, there is clear mutual demand
between western scholarship and China's practices. But the gap between
the two is not only the Pacific Ocean, but also the different
conventions of practices and even ways of thinking implanted in our
histories and cultures. The transactions cost is so high that brokers
are a necessity. And we are the buffer between the two to absorb
shocks.
But are we just brokers or carnival hosts? No. for three reasons.
First, we define the demand. Brokers work on established needs but we define new ones.
Second,
we break boundaries. We make the conversation across academia,
government, private sectors possible in China. We tolerate different
viewpoints. People feel relaxed in speaking in our platforms with an
expectation that their views will be debated and challenged.
Third,
we have our own voice. CPN is not only a place ideas getting exchanged
but for new ones being generated, and we work with public media to make
them accessible to the broadest population.
I
would like to thank you all and particularly MIT, faculty and students
and our advisor, Prof. Larry Vale. MIT enables, enriches and empowers
China Planning Network. MIT is the root of CPN.
I hope CPN and China are treating you well. Now it is time for us to challenge you for your best brain!
Thank you!
Jinhua Zhao
Executive Commissioner
China Planning Network
|