A well-intentioned Al Kamen writes in his blog today that he is upset 10 members of the Senate and their families are on a study tour to China, or what he calls a "junket," a term of derision to suggest that American tax dollars are being wasted on luxury hotels, site-seeing, expensive food, and anything pleasurable your mind can conjure up. Anything but doing work that is in America's national interest. The vast majority of comments on his blog consisted of cheerleading.
Pardon me for raining on the righteous indignation parade, but as a global power American politicians need to understand the world, and the best way to do so -- besides reading books (and who does that?) -- is to travel. American officials, particularly members of Congress, travel abroad far, far too little. The more "junkets" they take, the more responsible American foreign policy will become.
Given China's growing importance to the global economy and international security, it is particularly important for officials to visit the People's Republic and its neigbhors. I was honored in May 2009 to be able to accompany Congressmen Rick Larson (D-WA) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) [now a Senator] on an 8-day study tour across China to better understand trends in China's economy in the wake of the financial crisis. The trip was organized by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the leading American organization dedicated to promoting greater mutual understanding and people-to-people relations between the US and China. We met with Chinese political leaders in different regions, top decisionmakers on economic and financial policy, and representatives from American and Chinese industry. We stayed at nice hotels and ate good food, but we were typically on the bus before 8:00 am and not back in our rooms until after 10:00 pm. I don't agree with all the policy positions of the two members I accompanied, but I admire the dedication they and their staffs demonstrate by putting in such long hours and being genuinely interested in learning what is going on in China and how it affects America and the rest of the globe. I can be as cynical as anyone about politics and am disheartened by the ballooning budget deficit, but here is one area where the Senate (and House) are moving in the right direction at a modest price.
So unless there is something really strange that has not come out about the Senators' current trip to China, I have only four words for the group: yi lu ping an (safe journey)!
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