What sources have you used to arrive at the outlays of "8-10% of US GDP for nearly 40 years"? According to Gary Berg-Cross and Stephen Fromm's "US military spending as a percentage of GDP, 1940--2003" (at <http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php>), the last time military spending exceeded 8% was 1970, and they put the proportion of military spending in 2003 at 3.7%. What's the proportion of the imperial outlays that ever went into academic think tanks and area studies programs? I'd think that's obviously minuscule compared to military spending.
>The spread of English is just like the spread of the media culture,
>or the cell-phonization of the global periphery -- not necessarily a
>bad thing, in fact, it can be a stepping stone to all sorts of good
>things.
The time spent on studying English is of course the time not spent on studying something else (some other language, science, art, or whatever). How many person hours are spent on teaching and studying English in countries where English is rarely used except in English classes? To take the most extreme example, average Japanese public school students are compelled to take English courses _for six years_ beginning in the first year of middle school. _No other choice_ is offered (unless a student attends an expensive elite private school). Students also have to study classical Chinese poetry, but (absurdly) only according to the Japanese pronunciation and word order (kundoku), which doesn't even help students familiarize themselves with basics of modern Chinese. Moreover, English is a required part of college entrance exams for both public and private colleges and universities, so unless students do well in English (at least in terms of multiple-choice tests on grammar), they can't get into the most prestigious institutions. After six years of laborious work on the part of teachers and students, most students are unable to speak English _at all_ (no wonder, as few native speakers are employed by middle and high schools and spoken English is therefore hardly included in the curriculum), nor can they read and write English very well. It makes more sense for Japanese schools to offer courses in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, etc. or lessen English requirements and free up instructional time for other subjects (students planning to major in English later can take more English courses as elective).
And what does "cell-phonization" have to do with the spread of English? "Annual market shares for the top vendors were: Nokia 30.6%, Motorola 15.4%, Samsung 12.8%, Siemens 7.3%, LG 6.5% and Sony Ericsson 6.3%," <http://www.livingroom.org.au/cameraphone/archives/q4_2004_record_for_cell_phone_manufacturers.php>, February 16, 2005). Nokia is based in Finland, but are more people learning Finnish to reflect Nokia's market share? One can say that the American language has continued to increase its linguistic market share in recent decades, despite, not because of, transnationalization of production. In my view, the US power elite have benefited from comparative linguistic advantage in international politics and the culture industry -- producing anything from college education, Hollywood movies, computer software, and scientific discoveries -- due to path dependency, a legacy of the British Empire that the US Empire replaced, and recent victories over the Soviet Union.
"Homeland Security" in the United States, however, is changing the cultural terrain, accelerating international competition in the education market, an industry of a considerable size in itself, which also has major implications for labor migration (if students choose to stay) and political hegemony (if students decide to go home, bringing back the dominant ideologies of countries where they study):
<blockquote>Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. In July, Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half.
Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.
Some of the American decline, experts agree, is due to post-Sept. 11 delays in processing student visas, which have discouraged thousands of students, not only from the Middle East but also from dozens of other nations, from enrolling in the United States. American educators and even some foreign ones say the visa difficulties are helping foreign schools increase their share of the market.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
During 2002, the most recent year for which comparable figures are available, some 586,000 foreign students were enrolled in United States universities, compared with about 270,000 in Britain, the world's second-largest higher education destination, and 227,000 in Germany, the third-largest. Foreign enrollments increased by 15 percent that year in Britain, and in Germany by 10 percent.
The countries exporting the most students were China, South Korea and India, but the annual global migration to overseas universities involves two million students from many countries traveling in many directions. That number is exploding -- by some estimates it will quadruple by 2025 -- as economic growth produces millions of new middle-class students across Asia.
In October, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, an economic forum for 30 leading industrial nations, took note of this global movement in a study. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, an analyst at the organization's headquarters in Paris and an author of the study, said that traditionally most countries, including the United States, had tried to attract foreign students as a way of disseminating their nation's core values.
But three other strategies emerged in the 1990's, Dr. Vincent-Lancrin said. Countries with aging populations like Canada and Germany, pursuing a "skilled migration" approach, have sought to recruit talented students in strategic disciplines and to encourage them to settle after graduation. Germany subsidizes foreign students so generously that their education is free.
Australia and New Zealand, pursuing a "revenue generating" approach, treat higher education as an industry, charging foreign students full tuition. They compete effectively in the world market because they offer quality education and the costs of attaining some degrees in those countries are lower than in the United States. Emerging countries like India, China and Singapore, pursuing a "capacity building" approach, view study abroad by thousands of their nation's students as a way of training future professors and researchers for their own university systems, which are expanding rapidly, Dr. Vincent-Lancrin said. (Sam Dillon, "U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students," New York Times, <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html>, December 21, 2004)</blockquote>
<blockquote>In pagoda-style buildings donated by the Chinese government to the university here, Long Seaxiong, 19, stays up nights to master the intricacies of Mandarin.
The sacrifice is worth it, he says, and the choice of studying Chinese was an easy one over perfecting his faltering English. China, not America, is the future, he insists, speaking for many of his generation in Asia.
''For a few years ahead, it will still be the United States as No.1, but soon it will be China,'' Mr. Long, the son of a Thai businessman, confidently predicted as he showed off the stone, tiles and willow trees imported from China to decorate the courtyard at the Sirindhorn Chinese Language and Culture Center, which opened a year ago.
The center is part of China's expanding presence across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, where Beijing is making a big push to market itself and its language, similar to the way the United States promoted its culture and values during the cold war. It is not a hard sell, particularly to young Asians eager to cement cultural bonds as China deepens its economic and political interests in the region.
Put off from visiting the United States by the difficulty of gaining visas after 9/11, more and more Southeast Asians are traveling to China as students and tourists. Likewise, Chinese tourists, less fearful than Americans of the threat of being targets of terrorism, are becoming the dominant tourist group in the region, outnumbering Americans in places like Thailand and fast catching up to the ubiquitous Japanese.
As the new Chinese tourists from the rapidly expanding middle class travel, they carry with them an image of a vastly different and more inviting China than even just a few years ago, richer, more confident and more influential. ''Among some countries, China fever seems to be replacing China fear,'' said Wang Gungwu, the director of the East Asian Institute at National University in Singapore.
Over all, China's stepped up endeavors in cultural suasion remain modest compared with those of the United States, and American popular culture, from Hollywood movies to MTV, is still vastly more exportable and accessible, all agree. The United States also holds the balance of raw military power in the region.
But the trend is clear, educators and diplomats here say: the Americans are losing influence. (Jane Perlez, "Chinese Move to Eclipse U.S. Appeal in South Asia," New York Times, <http://travel2.nytimes.com/mem/travel/article-page.html>, November 18, 2004)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>