China is the focus of world attention this year, when Beijing hosts the 2008 Summer Olympics. China has been building skyscrapers and refurbishing ancient sites in preparation for its unveiling as a country undergoing major transformation. While China will present a new physical face to the world this summer, it has been in the spotlight on the world business stage for more than two decades. Known mostly for low cost labor and cheap goods, it is advancing economically at a faster pace than most other countries, including the United States. There are predictions that, barring social upheaval, which could slow economic growth, China is on course to overtake the U.S. economy in the next decade.

Because of its impact on the world in this age of globalization, it was inevitable that I would choose China as a destination for students in the international reporting course I have been teaching since 2005. My goal was to have the students report on the complexity of change within China, while providing the context needed to evaluate China's influence in the world. This was no small order for Illinois journalism students, like John Paul, who had not traveled outside the United States before the trip to China.
"Traveling abroad is awesome in and of itself. Now, combine travel to the world's most populous country with the journalistic mission, the quest to be a storyteller in China, to track down sources, do interviews in a foreign language, to find your way in some of the world's biggest cities, and you get a real education," said Paul.

Ten journalism students were selected from a pool of applicants. In preparation for the 15-day reporting trip to China, during which students would function as foreign correspondents, the class conducted weekly lectures and discussion. Students were immersed in the history, culture, economy, and politics of China within the context of globalization. The students were challenged to understand the connections between China and the U.S. and examine how these two economic powerhouses interact with the rest of the world.The improved Chinese economy means many Chinese can now afford better food, better education, better clothes, and better transportation. Those living in the prosperous cities are trading their bicycles for cars.

" The Chinese government estimates roughly one-thousand new cars hit the roads each day in China, and the pollution from automobile and factory emissions is compounded in Beijing, when mixed with sand blowing in from the Gobi Desert," reported Sam Unger, foreign-correspondent-in-training. His story captured the pollution problem, and explained the solutions the Chinese government is considering as it tries to make Beijing more hospitable to Olympic athletes this summer. China has also been hard at work building Olympic venues and hotels to accommodate the athletes and the millions who will converge on Beijing to attend Olympic events.

Lauren Thorbjornsen interviewed the workers who have traveled from the countryside to labor at the construction sites in Beijing. She documented their working and living conditions, and the sacrifices they must make to support the families they leave behind.

"More than sixty percent of migrant workers are separated from their spouses and children. Migrant workers visit home usually only once or twice a year. Getting home isn't that easy either. When they return home to celebrate the Chinese New Year, these workers will sometimes wait in line for two days at the train station to get a ticket and even then, the trains are often sold out. When they manage to find a ticket, the ride home is far from pleasant. The migrant workers returning home might have to stand for over 15 hours on the train." reported Thorbjornsen.

In addition to reporting on the changes taking place within China, the student journalists were challenged to explain the impact those changes have on people living outside of China, more specifically in central Illinois. As graduate student John Paul reported, "the number of Illinois companies operating in China has tripled in the last five years". He profiled three Illinois companies, both big and small: Caterpillar, Cim-Tek and Littelfuse. "Each is finding a way to make China a part of its daily operations," reported Paul, and in the case of Caterpillar demand for its products in China has created new factory jobs in central Illinois.

There are also strong links between central Illinois and China in the state's agriculture sector. Graduate student Michael Koliska learned that in 1991 the American Soybean Association started an aquaculture program in China, introducing soybeans as fish feed. He reported that the improved economy in China is creating an appetite for Illinois soybeans.

"With higher salaries, more Chinese increasingly want pork, chicken and fish on their dinner table. But at the moment this is only possible with soybeans from Illinois and other states [providing feed for livestock]. Each year more and more soybeans worth billions of dollars cross the Pacific Ocean because the Chinese farmers cannot meet the increasing demand of the most populated country in the world," explained Koliska.

However, the connections between central Illinois and China are not always positive.

As Ted Land reported, discarded computers, some from central Illinois, are being shipped to cities such as Taizhou, China, creating electronic pollution in the poverty-stricken region of China. 

"The Illinois State Department of Central Management Services, or CMS, processes almost 11,000 discarded electronics items each year, including computers and computer monitors. In 2005, CMS was contacted by the Basel Action Network with disturbing information about the fate of Illinois computers. The manager of CMS learned that some unscrupulous buyers were shipping the electronic waste overseas where workers toil as many as nine hours a day, seven days a week, disassembling the waste looking for reusable parts and precious metals. The work is dangerous.  Harmful chemicals and e-waste byproducts seep out of the electronic scrap," reported Ted Land.

He also described the Illinois e-waste program now in place, one of only a handful in the country, aimed at better controlling the disposal of electronics. CMS NOW divides scrap into two categories.  The first is useful scrap and includes products with some value that will still be sold to the public.  The second category is useless scrap that will go straight to a trusted local recycler and will remain in the U.S., which reduces the likelihood Illinois computers will end up in developing regions of the world like China.

The stories were reported as part of a two-hour radio special broadcast on WILL-AM in Urbana. The students built a companion web site (http://will.atlas.uiuc.edu/index.php/chinaBlog/), where they kept a daily blog of their trip, and where the entire two-hour special has been posted. Reporter Ted Land said it was after his story was broadcast and linked to the Web site that he had the most revealing moment of his international reporting experience.

"One morning I received an email from a National Geographic writer.  As I opened the message I wondered what a veteran journalist working for a leading international magazine would want from an amateur like me.  It turned out he was working on a story similar to mine, and was seeking advice on finding guides and translators, as well as tips on how to report in the city I had visited.  I knew the story I was doing in China was important, but it wasn't until this moment that I realized the scale of what I had accomplished.  It hit me that I was now playing in the same arena as some of the top international journalists," said Ted Land, in an article about the course he wrote for the University of Illinois Alumni Magazine.