China Stories By William Brown

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William Brown didn't feel surprised to hear the BRICS Summit will be held in the city of Xiamen, in southeast China's Fujian Province. Brown’s first encounter with President Xi Jinping was in November, 2001, when Xi was the governor of Fujian Province.

While Brown and his wife were having dinner with Xi Jinping in the provincial capital of Fuzhou, Xi encouraged Bill to write more books about Fujian.

“You wrote about Xiamen, your second hometown; you should write a book about Quanzhou, your third hometown.”

William Brown helped another Songjiang district in Shanghai in Livcom Awards in La Caruna, Spain, in November 2005. /Photo provided by William Brown

The city of Quanzhou, the ancient starting point of the Maritime Silk Road about 1,000 years ago, was once the greatest port in the world. Although now relatively unknown to international travelers, Brown was fascinated about the rich history and culture he discovered while researching his book, “Mystic Quanzhou.”

In recognition of the role played by Quanzhou as one of the major ports along the Maritime Silk Roads, the city government asked Brown to help them compete in the Livcom international award for the most livable city in 2003. Brown spent weeks exploring every corner of the city, driving around, taking notes and pictures, and interviewing people.

William Brown has been witnessing the internationalization of the modern city of Xiamen formed in the past thirty years. /Photo provided by William Brown

What can bring the region back on to the global stage is the topic that intrigues him the most. Serving as the academic director of Xiamen University's OneMBA program, ranked by Financial Times as one of the world's top 30 programs, Brown saw the chance of connecting the city to the world through OneMBA, a consortium of five universities in five countries with students from over 30 countries.

“It is a platform to bring global talent with different backgrounds into one program, and also a good opportunity for the School of Management in Xiamen University, which was one of China’s first higher education institutes to go global,” said Brown.

Brown says that a global perspective has for centuries been embedded in the history of the port city of Xiamen. /Photo provided by William Brown

The start of the ancient Maritime Silk Road and home of China’s most successful businessmen, Xiamen is again in the global spotlight thanks to President Xi’s new Belt and Road Initiative and the 2017 BRICS Summit in Xiamen—both of which reflect the benefits of the peaceful, win-win prosperity that New China has been championing for almost seven decades.