Introduction
What a privilege to have spent a hot three weeks in Memphis, Tennessee, with the 2024 Class of the Tennessee Governor’s School for International Studies. I was overjoyed to return to the city where some of the world’s greatest industries have been launched serving the noble cause of freedom joined with prosperity. Which led us to consider the future your generation can bequeath to your descendants. There are some mighty, simple lessons I’ve drawn that ought to inspire you to make a positive difference in the lives of everyone you encounter. I’d like to take you on a tour of the future world you may wish to inhabit.
Executive Summary
1. Deliver an unprecedented and long overdue Missionary Ridge National Park and Chattanooga History Museum for locals and visitors to learn about our city’s finest hour and proud story of the Dynamo of Dixie.
2. Work with 42 year old sister city friends in Wuxi, China to design and ultimately re-introduce passenger railway travel in Chattanooga and throughout the United States.
3. Utilize Memphis as global logistics hub and Nashville as marketing arm for a massive US Export operation to assist rebuilding America’s manufacturing base.
4. Initiate a new era in global cooperation based upon Chattanooga’s record of engagement by befriending citizens of the Port of Vladivostok, Russia. Work together to construct a highway connecting their Pacific Rim outpost to the State of Alaska that Russia sold to the United States 150 years ago.
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1. Global Inspiration Begins
Forty five years ago I was inspired by the historically accurate novels of James Clavell. First book I read was Shogun about the earliest Dutch sailors to arrive in Japan and found their culture intriguing. James Clavell skipped ahead a few centuries to his book Tai-Pan in Hong Kong in the 1840s. His stories follow the line of a particular family of Scottish traders and swashbucklers in Hong Kong and their reliance upon local Chinese to keep profitable trade, His book titled Noble House takes place during one week in Hong Kong when an American businessman flew his own jet to Hong Kong but was no match for the entrenched British who ruled Hong Kong until 1997. I did want to follow a life that could be so exciting.
My earliest contact with Asia came via my father’s colleagues who introduced me to Chinese characters. There were uncomfortable tv programs about a place called Vietnam. We understood the Reds in Russia to be on the wrong side of history. I was happy to watch President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972. China was beaten up pretty bad by failed Communist policies. America seemed to be the hope of all mankind. In the senior year of high school in1979, I watched in fascination as Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited America and our nation began its warm embrace of China. I loved the smiles of the Chinese people that contrasted with the dour images coming from the Soviet Union.
At Rhodes College, I played varsity soccer team and enjoyed college life. By my second semester, I could not follow my father and grandfather into the field of Medicine. Serendipitously I enrolled in a six week class on the British Commonwealth and their majestic global empire. It seemed like to good thing to bring modern transportation, hospitals, factories, running water, sound administration and Christianity to all corners of the world. A great professor John F. Copper helped me focus on China’s opening via Hong Kong. Finally, I credit the board game known as Risk for a globally strategic mindset.
Unlike three previous generations, my brothers not of an age to be sent to war. History taught me that our last three wars of the 20th Century all began in Asia. Why not work to avoid a four and final Asian war with China. Rhodes College has one of our nation’s earliest majors of International Studies, so my die was cast. How to order a beer and find a restroom in China: that was my key objective. What came later would take decades to unfold. Besides, I had plenty of time and the will to explore new worlds.
When Duke University started their Study in China Program in 1982, I raced to apply. I also played too hard at indoor soccer and wound up in the hospital for an ACL reconstruction and further complications. It was decided that I should wait until my graduation in 1983 and happily that is how I first got to China. As our cold Nanjing winter was ending, I chanced upon a lady from the newly established China Institute of Mining nearby in Xuzhou who was seeking English teachers for this national university. Armed with a letter of recommendation and my resume, I travelled to this closed city to live as one out of a million foreigners in a sea of blue and green Mao suits and black heads of hair. I stayed there for one semester and grew close to the administrators, professors, college and high school students who had never before encountered an American. It was an out-of-this-world experience as China was emerging from thirty years of boneheaded Communist mismanagement and a cruel, utter failure to deliver prosperity for the Chinese people.
Before departing from Shanghai in June 1984, I spent every last RMB at stores along the fabled Bund and Nanjing Road. Shanghai has changed so much since then as China has led the way forward with a peaceful development. The Chinese are more Confucian than Communist which might explain their hard-working spirit determined never to go back to the bad old days. As an early American visitor to grand but disheveled Protestant churches, we were very well-received. The old folks had good memories of the Americans they knew from the time of World War 2 and earlier.
In the year of 1984, I went from Communist China to Washington, DC for a Senate internship and to plot my return to Asia, In early 1985, I flew on a one-way ticket to Taiwan – Republic of China. At that time, few Taiwanese had ever visited mainland China, so they were keen to hear of my experiences there. Great people who love their families and their free and affluent lives. Would AI even exist without the island redoubt of Taiwan? The contrast with mainland China where incentives and initiative were rare commodities had a profound effect on my political maturation. After a wonderful year spent in Taipei teaching English and learning Chinese, I returned to Memphis to teach Mandarin Chinese at the first session of the Tennessee Governor’s School for International Studies.
After three summers spent in Memphis, I returned to New Orleans to complete my MBA program at Tulane University and serve as a Youth Team Leader at the GOP National Convention at the Superdome in August 1988. Following the election of our first Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China to be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20th, 1989, George H.W. Bush returned to China just one month later to Beijing to meet his old friend Deng Xiaoping and others. Soon followed a nationwide student movement demanding more “Reform and Open” policies. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the present day, there has not been such a united altruistic national movement as what happened in early 1989.
But as good intentions often lead to a wrong direction, the old guard Communist leaders were not OK with an American-style democratic republic such as the United States. Following the crackdown on June 4th, 1989, the Bush Administration in coordination with the US Senate and House of Representatives continued to provide China with Most Favored Nation trading status that created what is today the world’s largest manufacturing economy.
After working three summers with gifted and talented Tennessee high school students and spending two and a half years earning an MBA, I was keen to get back into the exciting progress of China. I had secured my first position out of Tulane with one of our nation’s leading specialty chemical companies known as Buckman Laboratories. Their chairman told me he wanted a Chinese flag at his corporate headquarters to go along with the two dozen other nations where they operated. Suddenly my mind returned to the game of Risk and what I instinctively knew about China. I held my breath and fell back under the wings of my 1983 Duke University Professor Arif Dirlik. His assistant director had backed out and he told folks in Durham, NC to “send Bob or send no one.” I happily accepted the offer which my father called “a Godsend.”
God or perhaps the inspiration of James Clavell brought me back to Hong Kong to join the program already in progress. These young Americans were much like me six years earlier and we had a great time. In an act of serendipity, one dear student from Texas happened to be in the one foreign hotel in Nanjing when Edward Khalily approached her about a job in China. She thankfully passed along my name and before long I was employed by Wego Chemical and Mineral Corporation of Great Neck, New York.
To understand this man and the company he built, imagine a modern-day Marco Polo who immediately responded to the opening of trade with China in 1979 and began a tireless pursuit for products to buy and export around the world. Global communication at that time was conducted on bulky telex machines that were in short supply in China. To survive, Ed Khalily carried freeze-dried meals as if on a mountain climbing expedition. One story that speaks to his sheer determination was the effort he made to reach a certain factory high up in the mountains of Sichuan province where roads were impassable. To reach Sichuan Vinylon Works, he took a train to Chongqing, now a bustling city of thirty million people. Not so 40 years ago. He bought a boat ticket and sailed fifty miles upstream on the Yangtze River. He departed from the boat and walked to the factory gates and asked to be let in. When I joined his company in 1989, they were the largest foreign buyer from that factory.
Now for a word about his company’s name: Wego. To save the expense of a telex machine, they used the law offices in New York City of Wedeman and Godnick whose first two letters create two words that are among the first words spoken by any English student. The Chinese people since I have known them in 1983 have been very focused on learning the English language. To have a company name that means “Let’s Go,” you can imagine how the uproarious laughter would ensue along with plenty of “ganbei” or bottoms up because the Chinese love to liquor up their best customers. Besides, I was having the time of my life.
Following the June 4th, 1989, crackdown in Tiananmen Square, American businesses tended to postpone their plans for China projects. I was already committed to China as I had promised myself when I taught there in 1984, the year George Orwell warned us about. I recall telling the Chinese I met then that the United States is a country where we can speak freely and criticize our president. Years later – 2020 to be exact – I realized that my country was no longer that idealistic place I had defended. That’s why we must not falter now!
I spent the next four years travelling “from Heilongjiang in the north to Hainan Island in the south” in pursuit of a wide range of chemical products. Sometimes just being in the right place is all it takes to capture an opportunity. And as luck would have it, Wego’s win came at the hands of a negligent engineering team in Louisiana that exploded our nation’s largest factory to manufacture nitromethane while killed eight workers. Suddenly American customers who depended upon that factory had nowhere to turn but Wego Chemical and Mineral Corp. Since Ed Khalily and I were ever present faces at the Canton Trade Fair and elsewhere across China, I knew exactly which exporters to approach to purchase the lion’s share of that valuable but explosive product. While I refused to demand a share of their winnings, I felt as though they had been properly compensated for the risk of hiring and training me to be their “eyes and ears” in China. It’s a job I loved from the moment we met. Never in a million years would an American have taken the bull by the horns way back in 1979 and gone solo to China. Fortunately, Ed Khalily’s partner Hilbert Eshaghpour, PhD ably handled the global sales, shipping and finance necessary to start a multinational company from scratch. Today Dr. Eshaghpour runs the company and I am only their distant if not pleasant memory.
The experiences described above have given me a unique and hopefully quite positive view toward our local, state, national and global development. If I am able to bind people and nations together for the betterment of mankind, you can bet I’ll shout my story from the rooftops. Trust me that I am not a showman and have limited entrepreneurial skills. Not to berate myself, but I decided in 1984 as an English teacher in China for the price of five dollars a day that money would never be my motivating actor.
I was feeling silly one day in Lafayette, Louisiana when I decided to live my life according to LAMP: Love, Adventure, Money and Power. I have found the first two and hopefully I am closing in on the final two parts of a complete life. As bright young kids yourself, it is natural to disregard the advice of elders. But I have been around the block and want you to consider these big four ideas. I am sincere in literally wanting each of you to become part of these plans. Maybe we’ll launch a company that can provide funding to keep Governor’s School better than ever. Memphis does play a key role but let me start from where I am planted.
2. Tennessee Inspiration Begins
Memphis you must understand is a place of Big Business where expectations for normalcy are high. Though I have worked for two top Memphis firms, taught at Governor’s School and Rhodes College Continuing Education, I also faced some humbling times as well. As fate would have it, a call from Chattanooga nearly 30 years ago saved me from a dry spell in my career. A company here manufactured polyurethane rubber used in a wide variety of industries and they needed an Export Manager. Here I learned a key lesson: It is better to be an exporter than an importer. When we closed some rather profitable export sales to shoe factories in China, I rejoiced knowing the men and women in the factory and office would earn a paycheck for another day. Of course, I would have been even happier if I were a part-owner in the company, but our Capitalistic system has not been perfected. 😉
It would be one thing if I had snatched the treasure of the China dragon and nothing else. But my wandering one day led me into an undiscovered world of Chattanooga’s early history. Back in 2009 when I was teaching at St. Andrews-Sewanee School, I chanced to walk behind a nearby church to find a small farm site at the eastern foot of Missionary Ridge. After walking through tall grass and poison ivy, I walked back to Shallowford Road to find a For Sale sign lying in the ditch. After a few months of negotiating, we purchased the property which we named Ridgeside Farm after the small, incorporated City of Ridgeside where Jan, Thomas and I live.
As it turns out, our little farm may become part of a future Missionary Ridge National Park. As things stand today, the greatest battles in Tennessee history were fought at Shiloh and Missionary Ridge. Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Antietam and Gettysburg were all made into National Battlefield Parks in 1890. It was said at the time that land along Missionary Ridge was too expensive and besides Chattanoogans were focused primarily on becoming the Dynamo of Dixie.
If you compare the Flag of Tennessee with its three stars and gold ring to Chattanooga, you can sketch a nearly perfect triangle connecting Chickamauga, Point Park atop Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. Crest Road runs north from the State of Georgia up to Sherman Reservation along seven miles of the most scenic views in the entire United States. Yet inexplicably, there is not a museum, visitor’s center or public restroom to beckon visitors to extend their stay. So down in our landing at the eastern foot along both sides of Shallowford Road, Chattanoogans can build upon the rich history of their first black primary school and early church where those who worked in the homes atop Missionary Ridge and in the booming factories downtown could get together for Bible readings, sermons, weddings and naturally funerals. One of our city’s oldest cemeteries is located behind the former Missionary Ridge Baptist Church which was donated to us ten years ago.
My fervent hope is that benevolent investors and/or philanthropists will come together to purchase our 3.45 acres together with at least three adjoining neighbors to unite 20+ acres for a Missionary Ridge National Park. This new property could include a scale model of Missionary Ridge to help visitors visualize the dramatic battle that unfolded on November 25, 1863 – the day that secured freedom for all Americans! Those who drive today along Shallowford Road down to South Chickamauga Creek and beyond to the Chattanooga Airport will note the deep ditches and lack of sidewalks along this busy thoroughfare. As Shallowford Road works its way up the Ridge to Crest Road, it is not an ideal place for bicyclists or pedestrians. For this reason, city planners may envision a greenway that goes behind our farm with secure, unimpeded access to Missionary Ridge for cyclists and pedestrians.
I have described my experience with this land as similar to Rip Van Winkle who awoke 30 years to find a changed world. This church was founded in 1874 – exactly 150 years ago. As an illuminating video titled Mission Ridge Garden on YouTube details, the church building was burned two times in its history over the issue of race or rather racism. My hope for this consecrated land is to see one of the universities I’ve attended (Rhodes College would be my first pick) provide the cut stone, slate roof tiles and stained glass windows to establish a small cathedral to commemorate the great sacrifices of the 2,337 men who died or wounded in one hour of the Union assault on Missionary Ridge.
While some might think I am talking above my paygrade and trying to pull a fast one, there is good reason to believe that this operation can be successful from the day it opens. The key reason is the size and contour of our farm. When the huge Ridge cut was made for Interstate 24, there was plenty of excess dirt dumped at the back of our 600 foot lot. That means that a gradually sloping hill extends to be huge flat landing with plenty of room for a stage, food and beverage facilities and of course restrooms.
Talk with any docent or employee at the Chickamauga Battlefield Museum and National Park about Missionary Ridge. They may point you to a self-guided tour, but they reluctantly tell you there are no bus tours, museum nor even restroom there today. Between our refurbished church and a large outdoor amphitheater, those same Park Rangers and Historians would really warm up there talk about the great Battle of Missionary Ridge from our key vantage point. There’s a large cemetery nearby that offers enjoyable walking trails. There should be a service component for a new public facility to include care and maintenance for this Pleasant Garden Cemetery on nearby Rowe Road.
I have been sworn in as President of the Chattanooga Civitan Club which provided me the opportunity to pitch the Missionary Ridge National Park idea to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. Next year, the International Bluegrass Music Association and the National Medal of Honor Convention will be held in Chattanooga. I’m determined for our Chattanooga Civitan Club to bring a stage, musical groups and refreshments to our Ridgeside Farm in 2025. The goal will be to gain community support for a positive program that builds a sense of community among several disparate communities. So much can be done with twenty acres of land that lies halfway between our airport and downtown. 161 years after the Battle of Missionary Ridge is not too late to commemorate that great battle and help educate all Chattanoogans of the great work done by our ancestors. Native Cherokees were sent out in 1838. The first railroad arrived in 1850. At the time of the Civil War, Chattanooga’s population was said to be as low as 1,500 people. That means that virtually all of Chattanooga’s history was written after the Civil War when industrial jobs paid good wages for blacks and whites alike. Chattanooga’s story needs to be told to a wide audience. From our long-forgotten piece of land, Chattanooga can better understand its past while enjoying the present and preparing for a future brighter than ever before!
3. Sister City Connection
As may be apparent by now, I have lived a blessed life of remarkable coincidences. After arriving in Chattanooga 30 years ago, I was amazed to learn that this city had made remarkable strides in citizen diplomacy through the Sister Cities partnership with Wuxi, China. It was to my personal benefit to meet Jean Hawk Troy who was raised in a Methodist missionary family outside Shanghai until she left to escape the Japanese invasion and to attend Randolph Macon College. Her husband was Pastor at Brainerd Methodist Church. Not long after Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, Jean Troy found it possible to return to China to visit her old friends and to learn of what happened during her 40 year absence. The Mayor of Chattanooga Pat Rose learned of her travels and asked her to find a Chinese sister city. Because China was still a backwater at the time and few Americans were knocking on their door, Jean Troy was able to bring Chattanooga together with the fabled city of silk, Wuxi that lies halfway between Shanghai and Nanjing, China’s southern capital. One key feature of Wuxi is its Tahu Lake, one of China’s largest. Wuxi also lies along the Grand Canal that was built to bring rice from southern China to the emperor in the north capital of Beijing. As a strategic trade route, there naturally arose a Robber Baron family that came to dominate the textile and grain markets for much of China. When China finally emerged from thirty years of self-imposed isolation, Deng Xiaoping selected Wuxi native Mr. Rong Yiren to head up the China International Trust and Investment Corporation and serve as China’s leading “Red Capitalist.” Upon his death in 2005, China’s leader Jiang Zemin called for a one week national mourning in his honor.
My limited knowledge of math tells me that Chattanooga and Wuxi have enjoyed official friendly relations for forty-two of the 75 years recently celebrated by the People’s Republic of China. To those who appreciate the importance of tradition within a Confucian society, the Wuxi-Chattanooga connection is highly valued by our friends in Wuxi. I have been part of Chattanooga mayoral delegations to Wuxi and can confirm that they treated us unbelievably well.
So here is where things get interesting. Through the trips and efforts we have made to establish Mandarin Chinese language programs in local high schools, Chattanooga has benefitted from the presence of full-pay boarding school students of high intellect to the tune of several million dollars each year. Trust me, it is not easy getting money out of China. Education may be our greatest export earner with China. Confucian societies have long prioritized education. But parents want their children to learn how to think and not just the rote learning emphasized in Chinese schools.
So our friends in Wuxi have always met us halfway and done their utmost to welcome Chattanoogans to their remarkable city. Years ago we consulted with Wuxi on the design and construction of a Chinese garden to rival the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland, Oregon. Portland is the sister city of Suzhou, which is often referred to as Wuxi’s big sister and the “Venice of the East.” As things turned out, there have been a few bumps in the road with China and the garden project never was completed.
Now is the time to reach out to our friends in Wuxi for help in rebuilding Chattanooga’s famous passenger rail system. China has done remarkably well in high-speed railway service going all the way to Lhasa, Tibet. I’ve joked that designing and building out a passenger rail line along pre-existing land in Chattanooga would take China only an afternoon to accomplish. Our local, county, state and national governments should give serious consideration to asking first our closest friend in China, namely the City of Wuxi for help in designing a 21st Century passenger railway system to get folks from home to work. Additionally, attention should be paid to connecting Chattanooga by passenger rail lines to Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville and Birmingham. Who knows how long it would have taken to build our first Trans-Continental Railroad without a Chinese workforce.
I am not saying the Chinese will agree to build our transportation infrastructure for free – but anything is possible. Apart from fighting wars around the world, our nation has not put its mind to anything resembling Eisenhower’s U.S. Interstate Program in the 1950s since the 1950s. How many railway engineers does the United States graduate each year? How much money has California spent on its non-existent railroad? Why wouldn’t we turn to the professionals to help guide Chattanooga toward a brighter future? It would be a shame not to inquire with our friends in Wuxi to see how they would approach our city’s layout. Maybe they’d recommend a tunnel for certain sections of trach. They certainly do not let mountains or valleys stand in the way of their unbelievable railroads. Again, it does not hurt to ask. Maybe because of Chattanooga’s long history with railroads and friendly ties to one of China’s wealthiest cities, we might jump to the head of the pack and once again move our nation forward in ways that some folks never imagined.
4. Economic Inspiration
Having been witness to the economic miracle that has been China’s story these past forty years, I draw the obvious conclusion that manufacturing for export has been their ladder of success. Look at Germany and Japan that were devastated in World War 2. Not only are they huge employers in America today, they rose from the ashes by manufacturing for export.
Since World War 2 when Uncle Sam strode the globe as the unchallenged hegemon, the United States has curried favor with nations by allowing them to export far more from the United States than they import. America gets to be the global policeman and fund friendly dictators around the world. But that dog can no longer hunt. We are $40 trillion in debt, our schools produce woke graduates with few marketable skills and we waste over $100 billion each year on our military. If we were truly a great nation, others would respect our interests and not require us to waste so much money in the utterly unproductive field of warmongering.
For America to get its mojo back, we must de-militarize and re-industrialize. President Trump is promising to use tariffs to balance our trade around the world. While that is a reactive policy, promoting exports in order to balance trade is decidedly pro-active. Think We Go!
Here is my plan for Tennessee to play the decisive role in American economic engagement with the world. As California crumbles figuratively into the sea, Nashville is increasingly viewed as the cultural heart of America. Country Music evokes traditional family values that are well-received in every non-woke country in the world. And yes there is plenty of room for liberals/leftists in Nashville, a city that never sleeps. 😉
To sell anything to anyone, it helps to have a story to tell and a sense of inevitability. All who have watched a Country Music video understands it speaks to a lifestyle that can be funny, tragic, warm and realistic. If a consumer buys into that way of life, they will likely buy products associated with it. In other words, Nashville can help market American-made products to the world.
Now let us turn to Memphis, the town that gave rise to Elvis, Rock and Roll and three times revolutionized the modern world in which we live. Clarence Saunders founded Piggly Wiggly, the world’s first supermarket in downtown Memphis. Kemmons Wilson built his first Holiday Inn on Summer Avenue in Memphis and thus created the first global hotel chain. Then along came Fred Smith who created FedEx, the world’s first overnight delivery service.
I urge people to consider how Memphis can reinvent the world once again. Consider the bases are loaded and the Next Big Idea will be the grand slam for the next era in global commerce. I can make a few suggestions that might pan out. In June, 2024, Elon Musk announced he would build the world’s largest supercomputer in Memphis near to the Mississippi River where the water will keep their operation running cool.
Now imagine the difficulty in marketing American-made products to every country in the world. No company could employ a full-time translator or sales rep for every distinct community in the world. But imagine that AI allows the personalization of the customer experience in every language and culture under the sun.
An America-focused Export Operation would likely by virtual or online in most cases. But the U.S. Department of Commerce has extensive experience in promoting American goods and services to foreign lands. Their skills can be put to use in promoting a new platform to market consumer and industrial products to overseas customers. Export sales are by their very nature a win-win situation. If I make widgets and sell to a fellow across town, I’m likely taking the sale from someone else. But when I export, there is no one in the U.S. who stands to lose – except other exporters.
Consider that Memphis is the global center of logistics. Consider the 200,000 FedEx employees stationed strategically all around the world. Imagine that they are American soldiers and they need ammunition or rather American products to deliver to overseas customers. Just as China has long subsidized its exporters, there is a good case to be made for the federal government subsidizing FedEx for their patriotic efforts as well as eliminating tax on those American manufacturers that prioritize exports.
My last thought on this Nashville-Memphis Export Powerhouse is to provide a name to rally around: WeGo-USA! Sounds better than Google and means more than Yahoo.
5. Into the Future – Beyond Old Regimes
I recently spoke to the Sister Cities International head office in Washington, DC. In mid-September of 2025, they will hold their annual conference on the sidelines of the Osaka World’s Fair in Japan. The United States should not neglect our strong ties to Japan and this would be a great time and place to reiterate Tennessee’s long-standing commitment to furthering US-Japan relations.
Just beyond Japan lies an uncharted land that reminds me of China in the 1980s. Not North Korea, but rather Vladivostok, Russia is the apple of my eye and the launch pad for America’s second Manifest Destiny. Recall that it was the discovery of gold in 1849 that changed American perceptions of our West Coast virtually overnight. I believe something similar will happen within Russia when they come to perceive better economic opportunities await them in their far eastern port city of Vladivostok.
The United States sadly proved to the world that we could fabricate $200 billion of borrowed funds to make and sell to Ukrainian warlords. That money found its way into the hands of some very corrupt people with blood on their hands. For this reason, Russia will be reluctant to trust Americans of goodwill who appear in Vladivostok bearing gifts. Then again, Vladivostok is ten time zones away from Moscow and they probably want nothing to do with destructive civil wars that only enrich evil men.
I proposed to Sister Cities International that together our City of Chattanooga, State of Tennessee and other entities should pull together its best minds and deepest pockets to make a sincere overture to the good people of Vladivostok, Russia. I am reminded of China’s excellent example of global diplomacy that happened in the early 1400’s at the dawn of the Ming Dynasty. Under the direction of Admiral Zheng He, China dispatched tribute ships laden with silk and valuable items to Singapore, India and Africa. Some say his ships circumnavigated the world and provided Christopher Columbus with a map to North America. Be that as it may, Zheng He’s fleet engendered warm feelings between the South Asian native populations and the Chinese people. Six hundred years later, overseas Chinese citizens in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. enjoy prominent status due in part to the proper introduction made centuries ago by wise Chinese visitors.
The United States has an excellent opportunity to befriend the Russian people in Vladivostok who have still not recovered from 70 years of Communist misrule. They see the Chinese along their 3,000 mile border making progress by leaps and bounds. They surely wonder if China will surpass or own them one day. To my knowledge, Russia has not signed a peace treaty with Japan following World War 2. The ostensible reason is Russia grabbed control of several island long held by the Japanese. It’s possible that the United States wanted to keep Russia and Japan at odds according to the time-tested Divide and Conquer theory.
But we are at the dawn of a new era. Old regimes like our own are being swept away as you read this. The future belongs to those who take risks and bounce back from adversity. I propose as the peace and prosperity building project for our 21st Century to construct a superhighway from Vladivostok, Russia to the Bering Strait and the Alaskan border. If that icy border is too difficult for a bridge, a ferry service from North America to Asia might serve as the last (or first) leg of a modern-day Silk Road that connects the world in a way never before imagined.
Let us make it happen!
- Tennessee Plan for a Local-Global Future – By Bob Edwards - January 5, 2025