vol. XV no. 3

				One of the world's foremost authorities on Asia brings his rich experience to Robinson. The closest translation of the Chinese "guanxi" in English is a human network of connections. "I think of guanxi as an active Rolodex," said Robert Oxnam, Robinson Global Scholar. What makes someone an authority on Asia not only depends on fluency in the history, culture and current happenings of the Far East but also the extent of his or her guanxi, according to Oxnam.   Bob Oxnam is president emeritus of the Asia Society in New York. He previously served for 17 years as the organization's president (1981-92), vice president and director of its Washington Center (1979-81) and director of its China Council (1975-81). The society is the leading public education organization involved with the Asia/Pacific region. He should know. Many consider Oxnam to be one of the world's foremost authorities on Asia. Through his long career as a teacher, president of the leading public educational organization on Asia, writer, television special correspondent and guide for the rich and famous, Oxnam has worked to understand all facets of this region. He is active in national and international organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Association of Asian Studies, the National Committee on U.S.­China Relations and the East-West Center. His passion is to help Americans "overcome the ignorance gap" for a part of the globe that is home to half of the world's population. This summer, Oxnam brought his guanxi to the Robinson College, where he is organizing and facilitating the international component of the Executive MBA program and also lecturing in the MBA program. Dean Sidney Harris, who is a member with Oxnam of the 2002 class of the Society of International Business Fellows, remarked, "Bob's extensive knowledge and background will greatly enhance the opportunities and experiences available to Robinson's EMBA students, and he will take our program, already ranked as 20th in the world by BusinessWeek magazine, to even greater levels of achievement." Oxnam will arrange two-week study abroad trips to Thailand and China. "This kind of immersion is required for digging below the surface," he explains. "I have a firm belief that understanding the history, culture, language and people of another country are prerequisites to doing business there." Where history meets business Oxnam approaches Asia's present through the prism of the past, and he believes an understanding of history is particularly important for doing business across the Pacific. "All the cultures in Asia have much longer histories than we do in the United States. In many cases, those histories still shape the way people think about themselves." Oxnam's entry into Asian studies came through the portal of history. He began what grew into a multi-faceted career as a professor at Trinity College, teaching classes in Chinese and Japanese history. A five-year fellowship at Yale immersed Oxnam in the history of Asia at the same time momentous events were changing the continent, such as the Cultural Revolution in China and Richard Nixon's first overtures to that country. Suddenly, what was happening in contemporary China seemed as interesting as its history. Oxnam's interests broadened to embrace many facets of Asia, from political science and economics to art history and culture. As his growing expertise kept pace with this rapidly evolving part of the world, Oxnam undertook leadership of an Asia Society program, the China Council, in 1975. The council was a national organization that presented news briefings on China for the American media as well as organized important conferences on China. "Our hope was to increase awareness of what was happening there and shape that awareness," Oxnam remarked. In 1981, Oxnam became president of the Asia Society, the preeminent public education society on Asia in the United States. Based in New York, the society under his leadership grew to a fully developed national institution with offices in Asia as well. Traditionally, the public knew the Asia Society for its art exhibitions and cultural offerings. However, Oxnam worked to expand the society's reputation in corporate affairs to equal that of its renoun in the arts. At the Asia Society's first initiative into the new area, major figures in business and banking in the West met with their Asian counterparts in Bali at a conference attended by 1,400 people, including three heads of state and Henry Kissinger. The conference has since become an annual affair, marking a serious yearly effort to monitor events in Asia. During 12 years as president of the Asia Society, Oxnam built the organization's programs and raised its prominence as the recognized authority on Asian affairs in the United States. The society successfully forecasted trends and recognized flashpoints in Asia. For example, some two years before the Philippine Revolution, the Asia Society already had led a study group that was in contact with Corazon Aquino and her husband prior to his assassination as well as Ferdinand Marcos and his administration. It was no easy job to keep pace with the rapid changes in Asia, Oxnam revealed. In just 40 years, the countries in the region have emerged from developing nations to become dynamic economic forces. "Asia continues to change," stated Oxnam. "In fact, the best expert on Asia continues to be the person most recently there, the one who has just stepped off the plane." Part of the same game While big variations on corporate governance exist within Asian firms, in general, governance developments have failed to keep pace with explosive growth, according to Oxnam. One impact on the governance structure of Asian businesses is the currency devaluation in the region, which began in Thailand in 1997. "The crash in the markets took a region that was young and had never experienced a deep downturn and shook it up," Oxnam recalled. The International Monetary Fund loans that came to the aid of many of Asia's failing economies also came with strict requirements for transacting business. These five years later, Asia is experiencing a governance maturing process. Korea, for example, has fewer companies and banks today with more government oversight. Still, Asia has weathered corporate scandals as large as those now rocking the United States. Last year, the Bank of China was the center of an enormous scandal for misappropriation of funds by its top-level administrators. "There are some real flaws in capitalism on both sides of the Pacific," Oxnam asserted. He believes that "we need to do a better job in our business press of understanding what is taking place in Asia. Just as our Enrons and Andersens and WorldComs reverberate there, we need to pay the same kind of attentiveness to major crises in Bangkok or Hong Kong. It's all part of the same game." Tours and books and television Sharing his expertise on Asia with leaders of the American private sector is another focus of Oxnam's career. During the past decade, he has led educational tours through China for the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as well as accompanied Henry Kissinger and George and Barbara Bush there. He has taken CEOs and boards of directors to the Orient, combining lectures with visits to local firms and historical sites. Oxnam finds these trips "one of the most interesting forms of education," and he will adapt them for Executive MBA trips he will lead in the Far East. Oxnam has taken an unusual approach to teaching others about Asia in two literary novels, Cinnibar and Ming. "Both novels come from the same hope ­ to share some of the things I have learned about Asia," Oxnam said. "They are a sugar-coated way of learning." Still another vehicle Oxnam has used to educate the American public is television. He hosted a sunrise program about Asia that drew a million viewers for CNN in 1977. For the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, he served as a special correspondent and as a narrator of a nine-part series on Asia that aired in 1993 and 1994 and that remains one of the better introductions to the region. From teaching to directing a society to educating through books and television, Oxnam shares his passion about the world across the Pacific with fellow Americans. "My goal in all these ventures has been to take a culture and open up its various avenues in a fashion that is immediately accessible." He's done that by building a strong human network of connections between Asians and Americans and in engaging U.S. attention for a region where "every place you put your toe in, you find a place to swim." Top |

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