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La Follette School of Public Affairs: Public Service and Outreach: China Connections
Through research, outreach and learning, La Follette School faculty, staff and students are building relationships with people in China.
Outreach Office
Networking for officials visiting from China
La Follette School of Public Affairs Outreach Director Terry Shelton collaborated in 2006 with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Office of the Governor of Wisconsin to host Mayor Xu Guowen when he was in Madison to study municipal government in the United States. During the three months Xu was in Madison, Shelton and Jeff Smoller of the Department of Natural Resources helped to organize trips, interviews, meetings and ceremonies for the visitor. In turn, Xu invited Shelton and Smoller to China, where they visited for 10 days in October 2006.
The La Follette School hosted 19 provincial Chinese officials in charge of environmental protection, soil conservation, city and county administration, metereology, personnel and farming in December 2007. Acting at the request of the Wisconsin departments of Commerce and Natural Resources, Outreach Director Terry Shelton set up a three-hour briefing that included speakers from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; and the Environmental and Public Health Network of Chinese Students and Scholars.
Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars: The La Follette School outreach staff helped a group of Chinese graduate students studying at universities around the United States start the Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars, which held its inaugural meeting in September 2006 in Madison. These students have helped organize meetings and receptions for university and state officials traveling in China.
Briefing state and university officials in advance of their trips to China: Using what they learned on his trip to China in October 2006 and from working with Chinese visitors and students on campus, La Follette School Outreach Director Terry Shelton and Jeff Smoller of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources briefed an associate dean from the University of Wisconsin-Madison before he traveled in February 2007 to China to set up a trip for Chancellor John Wiley. Shelton and Smoller subsequently briefed Wiley's top staff people. Shelton has helped state officials prepare to brief Governor Jim Doyle for his trade mission to China in fall 2007. Doyle went to China in 2004, accompanied by then La Follette School Director Donald Nichols.
Trout Lake video: The La Follette School Outreach Office and the Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars are producing a video describing the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Trout Lake Station, a research project to study a freshwater lake that started in 1924. The seven-minute video will be narrated in English and Chinese. The project is a collaboration of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Letters and Science, the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and the Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholars.
Faculty
Public management: Follette School Professor Carolyn Heinrich shares her research about governance, public managment and public sector performance with scholars and public affairs practitioners in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Governance in China: Melanie Manion has briefed the U.S. State Department of State and the U.S. China Security Review Commission on corruption and control in China. She served as a member of a Carter Center delegation that observed local elections in China. She is author of the book Corruption by Design, which contrasts experiences of mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the pressing question of how governments can transform a culture of widespread corruption to one of clean government.
Currency, exchange rates, world trade deficits: Menzie Chinn is an expert on China's role in world trade; and on China's currency and how its value affects the U.S. economy and trade deficit. Co-author of the 2007 book The Economic Integration of Greater China: Real and Financial Linkages and the Prospects for Currency Union, he shares his knowledge with agencies that include the U.S. Treasury's Office of International Affairs and the National Bureau of Economic Research, in addition to speaking at international conferences.
Students
Language acquisition: La Follette School students have taken intensive language courses in Chinese at Beloit College in Wisconsin and won scholarships to study Chinese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A student won a 2007-08 Fulbright to study Chinese in Harbin in Heilongjiang Province in northeastern China.
Governance: La Follette School students study how China governs itself. The 2007-08 Fulbright winner will research at Peking University’s Chinese Local Government and Local Administration Research Center. Another spent the summer of 2006 at the Carter Center's China Program monitoring foreign and Chinese news sources for stories and commentaries about political reform.
Environmental Regulation: A 2007 capstone workshop report explores the feasibility of using cap-and-trade, a specific type of market-based instrument, to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions in China.
La Follette School welcomes Chinese officials, La Follette School News, Dec. 14, 2007
La Follette School expands relationships with China, La Follette School News, Jan. 8, 2007
Four students win language fellowships, October 9, 2006, La Follette School News
Chinese scholars to convene on environmental health, September 8, 2006, La Follette School News