NC State in China Journal
June 1 - Chancellor James L. Oblinger
The entire delegation — NC State and RTP — was together. We left Shanghai for a two-hour drive west to Suzhou. We were joined on the trip by Dr. Lian Xie, president and executive director of the North Carolina China Center and Professor of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at NC State. (Dr. Xie is our noted expert in hurricane forecasting.) We arrived at Suzhou International Education Park (SIEP) to attend a signing ceremony between Suzhou University and Wake Technical Community College.
At this stop, we were joined by Duane Long, chairman of Longistics and chairman of the North Carolina Center. Prior to the signing, I had the opportunity to describe NC State’s academic, research and economic development activities and Rick Weddle who led the RTP delegation had the US delegation introduce themselves and their affiliations. Chairman Long described some of the activities of the North Carolina China Center.
Following these preliminaries, President Scott (Wake Tech) and President Cui (SIEP) signed their cooperative agreement. Chairman Long also signed an agreement on behalf of the NC China Center.
Our hosts accompanied us to a country retreat of traditional buildings that had been moved and reconstructed on the site three years ago. This has become a popular eating place for city dwellers to enjoy the rural setting¾a pristine lake with a pagoda and beautiful natural views.
The group then traveled to SCM Metal Products, a Research Triangle-based company with a manufacturing facility in Suzhou (Su-joe’). We were met by Vice President Tom Murphy and his staff who gave us a briefing on the company and its products. They manufacture copper-based powders for a variety of industrial and automotive applications. Examples include devices to dissipate heat away from the mother board in PCs and self lubricating bearings used in fractional horsepower motors such as in kitchen blenders and power seats in cars. Our group was very interested in the comparative costs of doing business in Suzhou and in RTP as well as the challenges of working in the government regulated business environment.
Next stop: The Jiangsu Office of the North Carolina China Center. The mission of this office is to serve as a catalyst and resource for the promotion of governmental and economic pursuits between Jiangsu Province and North Carolina. The objectives are to explore business opportunities; foster industrial collaborations; assist with academic exchanges; enhance cross-cultural understanding; and assist all interested business entities in developing relationships with North Carolina.
We left the NC China Center and drove 30 minutes to Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) with the accompanying Suzhou International Science Park (SISP) and the Suzhou Higher Education Town (SHET). The SIP is huge¾covering 3,000 square kilometers—and is the largest cooperative project between the Chinese and Singapore governments. The park is now composed of several parks for IT, international technology, life science, a national software and subject matter experts. Currently 400,000 professional and 2,700 foreign corporations are associated with this park. There, we met with Deputy Secretary and Vice Chairman Yang Jianzhoung who provided a broad overview of this very impressive facility—all constructed since 1994. This complex represents and estimated investment of $4.5 to $5 billion (US).
As the speakers discussed the Suzhou Higher Education Town (SHET), we could not help but see the similarities between Centennial Campus and SISP/SHET, i.e., a unique combination of higher education, cooperation with business and industry partnerships with accompanying residential facilities. Currently, 10 Chinese universities are represented, on site, with students and faculty. Following considerable discussion we learned that Vice Chairman Yang had, in fact, visited NC State’s Centennial Campus some time ago.
We returned to Shanghai very impressed by what we had seen on, particularly our last stop at SIP/SISP/SHET.
Model of Suzhou Industrial Park
Signing at Suzhou
Group photo at Suzhou
Shaking hands with Steve Scott, Wake Tech