Guest Speech｜Joan McEntee, Former Under Secretary of US Department of Commerce
Date：2022-06-16
Speech by Joan McEntee, Former Under Secretary of US Department of Commerce
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Today's conference is very personal to me. 18 years ago, I created a summer program for Chinese children of parents working in the Washington D.C. embassy who had never visited the us previously and never interacted with American students. For 2 weeks every year, we took a different group of these Chinese children and American volunteer high school students as escorts throughout many of the iconic, historic and cultural sites of our nation's capital museums. I still recall the wonder in the children's eyes looking up at Henry, the African bush elephant in the Natural History Museum, and peeking at the Hope Diamond or the authentic T. rex in the fossil hall.
These young people also learned about a country's cultural heritage by being exposed to artifacts, such as those made by the Native Americans or the Eskimos of North America and sculptures of Western cowboys. This program exposed children from totally different cultures to those of Western children, and as time progressed, many of the friendships struck up during this time have been maintained over the past years throughout both countries.
Later we sponsored a similar visit to China, where Western students were enthralled at the Han Dynasty Jade Burial Suit from Beijing's National Museum, and learned about the practice honoring Chinese parents by viewing the tomb sweeping painting in the Palace Museum. These future leaders would never have learned about foreign cultures if such antiquities had been removed and traded illegally.
Those who denigrate the idea of international cooperation and the need for countries to participate in globalization have never heard nor understood what has been accomplished by those who have addressed us in today's conference. In our first museum conference, I had mentioned a hope that perhaps the next meeting could be hosted in China, and though that is impossible in person, I’m so pleased and appreciative the virtual hosting of this program is orchestrated and supported in China.
I would like to offer thanks to the experts whose perseverance in protecting the world's cultural heritage through international collaboration efforts have made such positive contributions. They have shown us how much can be accomplished when nations that possess many sectors, locations, backgrounds, and cultures, nonetheless, want to make sure that the future is a better place for future generations. It would be easy for some to say, let's focus only on how to promote and protect our own nation in showcasing our political agenda in our museums or devising a means to prevent the illegal trade of solely our own artifacts, but that is not what is occurring.
Working on these critical non-controversial and soft power issues of international concern provides examples of how nations can disagree on certain issues, but also recognize how interconnected we are on so many others by necessity. Such cooperation led by China, Europe, and the US and supported by other critical partners, provides not only a means to communicate, but also provides a means to heal.
