University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, July 13, 1988
Campus/Area
3
Phil Carvalho/KANSAN
Interns link state Chinese businesses
Li Lei of Zhengzhou, China, left, David McClure, KU graduate, and Jiwu Wang of Zhengzhou, China are participants in an intern exchange program between Kansas and its sister state, the Henan Proyce in China.
By Carla Krause
Kansan staff writer
Several Kansas businesses now have their foot in the door that is opening up to commercial trade in China, thanks to two KU business interns and an intern agreement between Kansas and its sister state in China, the Henan Province.
The intern exchange agreement was developed in 1986 by the Education Planning Committee of the Kansas Legislature, the state Commerce Department and the Board of Regents to improve trade relations between the two countries.
As a result of the agreement, two KU graduates, Tim Cook, 23, and David McClure, 33, spent nine months in the province, returning May 22. Two Chinese students, Li Lei, 25, and Jiwu Wang, 37, are attending KU this year and now are going to summer school.
Clyde Stoltenberg, associate professor of business, said that Cook and McClure attended Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, and gained insight into the commerce structure of China. They negotiated contracts between Kansas and Chinese companies, receiving orders from the Kansas companies by telex and then working to explain, translate and agree upon the details with the Chinese companies.
The Kansas companies involved were grain and food processing firms interested in selling their commodities to the Chinese and companies wanting to buy textiles, leather products, arts and crafts, carpets and airline supplies from the Henan Province.
Stoltenberg said that Cook and McClure tried to make an agreement with one Lawrence company, Packer Plastics. The company, which manufactures plastic
containers, was trying to interest the Chinese in an updated version of some of their containers, but no specific agreement has been reached.
StoltENberg said that the long-term effect of the interns' work was more important than the training of contracts they were able to sign.
"No one has tried to sit down and determine the value of the contracts they negotiated." Stoltenberg said. "Trade is built on relationships and friendships that develop with time."
Stoltenberg said the intern agreement also provided KU students $6,500 in loan for their study abroad in exchange for their services to the Kansas companies. The loan will be waived if the students accept employment from a Kansas university after they finish their internships.
Cook, who received his bachelor's degree in East Asian history in 1987, said he had accepted a job at an international merchandising company in Kansas City. Mo. He said that the company's owner was a Kansas resident and paid taxes to Kansas; that allows Cook to work with the company while in China and to continue working there after his internship without having to repay his loan.
Cook said the program was a valuable experience to students in both countries, bringing them to different cultures, bringing them up to different cultures.
McClure has an extensive background in the Chinese language. He earned his bachelor's degree in Chinese in 1978 before earning a law degree in 1985. He studied Chinese at the Taiwan University in Taipei in 1976-77 and at the Peking Foreign Language Normal School in 1986, where he also studied Chinese law. He now is working on a master's degree in
Chinese and is looking for a job that deals with international trade and business law.
McClure said that last year was a success because he had access to high-level Chinese bureaucrats and that Kansas was represented in China.
"Some of the short-term agreements were not as successful as we thought they'd be." McClure said. "Henan is a developing part of a developing country, and trade is opening up quickly. . . The success has to be judged over a long period of time."
Lie, who works at the foreign affairs office in ZhengZhou as a translator for government officials and for Kansas to improve her English.
She said Henan was not much
"I walk outside and I say, 'We have this kind of weather, this kind of wheat field, this kind of tree and flower.'" she said.
different from Kansas.
Wang, who works at the tourism bureau in Henan Province, said he also was at KU to improve his English. He needs one more semester to complete a master's degree in teaching English as a second language.
Stoltenberg said the program would be reviewed annually to decide whether it would continue and that the Legislature has apportioned $30,000 for next year's interns.
Wang said he was working 20 hours a week as a custodian at Oliver Hall to provide for his stay in Kansas.
Student rejects embargo after visit to Nicaragua
Kansan staff writer
By Debbie Bengtson
David Burkland went to Nicaragua without a definite opinion about the U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua. After seeing the poverty, the children begging and the wreckage of the fighting in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, he said action must be taken against the embargo.
Burkund, Junction City junior, was one of five KU students who raised money for and traveled with the Veterans Peace Convoy to Nicaragua.
The convoy, composed of about 45 trucks and buses driven by Vietnam veterans, was halted at the Mexican border in Laredo, Texas, on June 8. The U.S. Customs Service told them that leaving the trucks would violate the trade embargo, which prevents sending equipment to Nicaragua that might be used in the war with the contra guerrillas.
Burkuland said that the humanitarian gesture of taking aid to children in Nicaragua first attracted him to the convoy. When he met the convoy, using his camera he realized it was political gesture as well for some of the participants.
"The they had two goals; delivering the humanitarian aid was the only one I was aware of," he said. "But soon I found out that politically motivating the people of the United States into doing something about the embargo in Nicaragua was just as important to the convoy."
The students decided to leave the convoy June 3 and go to Guatemala City, Guatemala, where they were to drop the bus off. When they arrived in Guatemala City, they found out the convoy had not made it across the busier border. They decided to take the bus and go on to Nicaragua anyway.
"We thought about leaving it there and doing our own thing." he said. "But then I thought, 'I told people we would bring some sort of aid to Nicaragua.' And we knew that the bus was as valuable as any aid we could have brought down there."
The bus eventually was donated to a special education school in Mana-
"I saw people tired of fighting wars, tired of fighting warriors supplied by the United States government," he said.
He said that if he had not had a moral commitment to the people who donated money, he would not have been able to witness the conditions of Nicaragua firsthand.
He said he spoke to one man who said he had no animosity toward the people of the United States, but he had animosity toward the U.S. politician, and wouldn't allow Nicaragua's people to govern their own country in peace.
War is the primary reason the men are poor and begging. Burkul said.
"When a country is small and using its resources for a fighting organization that is funded by a huge industrialized country like the United States, it's bound to cause hardship," he said.
The solution to the problems in Nicaragua may or may not be dismantling the embargo, but it is elevating the situation, Burkuland said.
"Farmers can't buy parts for their tractors, and transportation companies can't keep up their buses, so farmers have little cars for transportation," he said.
Burkuld said he had seen television and magazine reports of what was happening in Nicaragua. But when he reached Managua, he realized that things were worse than what the nightly news reported.
"The only things I have seen on the news about Nicaragua are either contras or Nicaraguan forces walking through the jungles," he said. "In the news I didn't see barefoot kids begging for my soup, or bunches of people stacked in a cattle car or the city's wreckage the city is actually in."
The embargo and the funding of the contras doesn't make sense, Burkulund said. "What good comes from tearing a country apart?"
Student delivers bus to Nicaragua
But he might face prosecution for violating trade embargo
Kansan staff writer
By Lisa Sheikh
Ria Reyburn, coordinator of the convoy in Managua, said the bus was delivered to her sometime last week by Seamus Brennen, a reporter for the Las Vegas (Nev.) Sun who had met three of the students in Managua. He kept the bus until he could be certain the students had obtained legal aid in case they were prosecuted.
A 1963 school bus driven by five KU students, originally part of the Veterans Peace Coupon to Nicaragua, has been delivered to Managua, Nicaragua, and was donated to the only special education school in the city.
The bus then was given to Reyburn, who handed it over. Los Pipitos, a non-governmental social service agency in Santa Cruz, was the first to arrive.
Reybun said the bus had been designated for use by the special education school because it had 170 students and one run-down bus to transport them. She said the bus was a very useful vehicle and had no other means for transporting the children.
"Some of the kids that go there miss three days out of five because the bus doesn't get there all the time." **Reed**
The students broke from the convoy June 3 after becoming impatient with some of its ceremonies and
protests. They crossed into Mexico, but the rest of the convoy was turned back at the border June 8 by U.S. customs officials, who said the mission violated the U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua. At that time, the officials said that all the supplies could be delivered to Colombia, where they had already carried them, must be returned to the United States.
Reyburn said that donating the bus was fulfilling the intentions of the Veterans Peace Convoy, which was to feed the children, not the war. She said the Lawrence bus also was appropriate for the school because "We love kids" was painted on the back of it.
The convoy made a second attempt to cross the border June 11 but again was unsuccessful. All of the medical supplies had been shipped ahead to Nicaragua by container.
Reyburn said that in addition to the students' bus, a pickup truck that had set out with the convoy also had broken away and was delivered to Reyburn last week. She said it had been donated to the Red Cress and was being used for a blood bank in Estel, about two hours north of Managua.
Five University of Kansas students drove this bus to Managua, Nicaragua, last month.
Jon Bell, former graduate teaching assistant in English and the leader of the student bus, said Monday it was possible that he could be prosecuted for delivering the bus, in his name, to Nicaragua without U.S. approval.
He said he had not heard anything from the Treasury Department, which imposed the embargo, but that if any of them were to do so, he would
Bell has sought the counsel of William Kuntsler, a New York lawyer who agreed to defend Bell free of charge. Kuntsler became a well-known figure when he defended the "Chicago 7," which included Abbey Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, after the 1968 Democratic Convention.
The students who accompanied Bell are in no danger of
prosecution, Bell said, because the bus was not in their names
Of the five KU students, three have returned to the United States, and two remain in Central America. David Burkland, Junction City junior, returned home July 7. Bell returned to Shawnee on July 2. Ted Millick, Kansas City, Mo., senior, came back June 13. Nancy Stettler
Bell said he wanted to thank the students and local merchants who donated money to the cause last April. The students raised $2,800 for travelling expenses.
Prairie Village senior, left the group in Guatemala to study Spanish in Antigua, the old capital. Susan Ask, Great Bend junior, is conducting environmental studies in Central America, Burkland said.
COMING SOON
apartments
524 Frontier Rd.
MGM Co.
(913) 842-4444
BODITONICS Professional Toning System by Suntana
Shape Up and Look Great in Your Bathing Suit and Summer Wardrobe Let BodiTonics Show You How!
Your workout will take less than an hour. And it will leave you refreshed, instead of needing to take a shower in the middle of your busy day.
The Suntana Sysem uses seven new fitness machines and a remarkable exercise principle that takes off inches fast
SUMMER SPECIAL 25% Student Discount Available Come in For a Free Demonstration Suntana Wolffe Tanning Bed Available New Wolfe Bed Bulbs For the Finest Tan!
23rd & Louisiana 841-7070 M-F 7-9, Sat. 7-12