Chinese “Noble” prizes

Citation

Teck Foo, C. (2010), "Chinese “Noble” prizes", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/cms.2010.32304baa.001

Chinese “Noble” prizes

Article Type: Editorial From: Chinese Management Studies, Volume 4, Issue 2

March 2010 sees the publication of a very intriguing Chinese book in China. A People’s Liberation Army Colonel Liu Mingfu and a professor at National Defense University argued in his China’s Dream, as quoted by Chito Rama for ABC News, Beijing, 2 March as follows (http://abcnews.go.com/International/china-replace-us-top-superpower/story?id=9986355):

[…] To become the world’s No. 1 has been China’s century-old dream. It was this dream that inspired three generations of great Chinese leaders, from Sun Yat Sen to Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping […] (italics added by this author).

I am wonder if Sun Yat Sen (1866-1925) (Cantonese phonetic), (in Putong-hua, Sun Zhong Shan; ) had ever envisaged, in following after him (Sun, 1897) that his fellow countrymen will pen their papers in English? And for an English journal, the Chinese Management Studies to be founded exactly a century and a decade later and to be published out of Bingley, a city in England? (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Extract of cover of Kidnapped in London

Clearly a China scaling towards becoming globally number 1 will require some of its best authors to master too, the world’s lingua franca: English. Dr Martyn Lawrence, our publisher puts it rightly on why the journal should stay in English only. For by publishing in Chinese Management Studies, the author in China is taking a very significant step towards internationalizing his research, ideas and philosophy.

In Guangzhou, I personally find many more Chinese people are openly echoing China’s Dream. In my view, it is now only a matter of when. In the past, it was will China be? When? Maybe, say by the earliest 2025. Chas Freeman painted of a 2025 China which seems a probable, if not even a desirable scenario (www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=6186).

Although he remarked on advances in science and technology reflecting “[…] China’s share of the world’s population […]” he made no comments about the global educational scene. In painting out what the educational scenario will be in 2025, one must factor in the self-learning curve effects. Confucius had always emphasized to the Chinese scholars, self-learning.

Also as Deng Xiaoping had remarked, the spillover effects upon the return of Chinese researchers and scholars to China on the rate of advancements as reflected, say by publications in research journals. With China’s clear emphasis on innovation through R&D, the Chinese researchers may begin by 2025 to supplant the Americans as well as Europeans in the respected journals.

If that happens, you can imagine Chinese “Noble prizes” (yes, it is Noble, not Nobel which is the name of Swedish benefactor) to eventually be replacing the originally from 1901, Swedish Nobel prizes in prestige – and I am sure, in size of cash awards. This will mean a realizing through the scholarly path of Mao’s saying “East wind prevails over the west wind”.

Mao’s expression in Chinese (especially the characters of ya dao ) is in tone a bit more emphatic than “prevail”. The deeper meaning may be better translated as one of “supplanting”. Or in several words, as the “pressing down so as to cause a toppling down”:

(dong feng ya dao xi feng)

Although Mao is not himself a research scholar, among the many quotations attributed to him, there is one that is highly relevant for authors who are doing empirical research for publications: “It is necessary to investigate both the facts and the history of a problem in order to study and understand it” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao).

Let us hope as Colonel Professor Liu had visualized it, the competition is likely to be more a friendly marathon. It is just not sustainable for Earth to see an outbreak of a war between any two giants among nations.

Deng Xiaoping’s words still carry a lot of weight among the current political leaders, in essence: deliberately, stay as second fiddle. His saying is often put into English as: “Never take the lead – but aim to do something big.” (www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/deng_xiaoping.html).

To avoid conflict and foster an atmosphere of friendly competition, for both countries China and US need to communicate so as to understand each other. For this to happen, China requires to have many more Chinese authors fluent in English to effectively convey her culture to the west.

That is why the Chinese authors (research) workshop which was held on 6 March 2010 at Lingnan College, Sun Yat Sen University is so highly important. We intend to enable much deeper exchanges of ideas through writings. And our goal is to foster skills in the writing of authors’ research in English.

Speaking to an author who had recently submitted a conceptual piece to Chinese Management Studies, we find ourselves agreeing for more works to enable the west to understand concepts (for example, one that is overdone in the literature, is guan-xi () that underpin Chinese management practices.

I am glad as Editor-in-Chief to have with me Professor Wang Xiao-hui to work together for the success of this first, 2010 All-China Chinese Management Studies Workshop (Plate 1). Besides, authors coming from all over China (for example, Dalian and Wuhan), we obtain truly in-depth research papers for the journal. Now Professor Wang Xiao-hui and me are trying to see if we can even put together an issue drawing on the best papers.

Finally, we have for the second issue of Chinese Management Studies, a series of high quality, mainly empirical pieces. Hua Song and Samir Ranjan Chatterjee explore competitiveness: “Achieving global supply chain competitiveness”. Economic downsizing and Chinese ideology is dealt with by Jun Zhao, Kathleen G. Rust, William McKinley and John C. Edwards: “Downsizing, ideology and contracts”.

Khalil Md Nor, Janejira Sutanonpaiboon and Nor Hamimah Mastor contributed a paper on “Malay, Chinese and internet banking”. Amir Shoham, Miki Malul and Mosi Rosenboim looked at future of Chinese growth: “The savings crisis and China’s future growth”. Our fifth paper by William K.W. Choy, Prem Ramburuth and Adeline Lee is exploring a vast canvas of China, the ASEAN and Singapore on “differentiated management”. Befitting the theme of this editorial is the book review that focuses on the theme of rising China.

I hope authors in China intending to write about management in English to contact firstly, Professor Wang Xiao-hui at Sun Yat Sen University (wangxh@mail.sysu.edu.cn) or to contact me directly at my email address with the School of Management, University of St Andrews fc30@st-andrews.ac.uk. For it is at University of St Andrews, now 600 years’ old, that I began the journey of bringing Sun Tzu to the western world. Eventually it led me to appear as an expert on the recent History Channel’s Sun Tzu Art of War.

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