San Francisco is known as the gateway to the Pacific. To Yang Xiaohua, that makes it natural and logical for the University of San Francisco's School of Management to be a big player in US-China relations.

"Preparing business leaders for tomorrow with a focus on China and globalization of China business and engaging the business community and policy makers for a fresh and insightful dialogue has become the new direction and focus of USF's School of Management," said Yang, an associate professor at the school.

She is directing a new initiative that will promote knowledge creation through research and development focused on China and the globalization of China business. Set to be launched Saturday, the USF China Business Studies Initiative "creates a hub linking China to the global community as well as to the business community in San Francisco," Yang said.

Its primary goal is to meet the educational needs of business leaders who have embraced the Chinese government's encouraging of investment abroad, known as "going global".

"Being the world's second largest economy, China's going-global needs to be understood, not to be feared," Yang said. "Chinese enterprises investing in the US need to be guided, not to be shunned. Chinese investment in the US needs to be integrated into the local community, not to be rejected."

In the 1990s, the School of Management played an important role in providing MBA and executive MBA programs that educated China's future business leaders, Yang said. Today, she said, it is still a big player, providing education to hundreds of Chinese students each year.

For the 2013 fall semester, USF attracted 933 undergraduate and graduate international students from China, making the country the largest source of international graduate students at the university, according to its International Student and Scholar Service.

Meanwhile, the School of Management has undergone a series of expansions of both its staff and its curriculum.

In the past four years, five new Mandarin-speaking educators have become faculty members, all with strong backgrounds in Chinese and international business. Masters programs have been augmented with new courses in Chinese business. Students also have been provided with internships and job opportunities in the Bay area and in China, and in their respective fields of study, Yang said.

Research is one of the initiative's important components. Its first major research project will be a joint study of Chinese enterprises in the US with the China General Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to research and publication, the initiative will also regularly hold Chinese business-related conferences and panel discussions, according to Stanley Kwong, the School of Management's managing director and term assistant professor of Greater China Programs.

The plan is to follow Saturday's launch of the initiative with an international academic conference on Chinese globalization. The event - tentatively set for sometime in the next year - would be co-sponsored by prestigious universities in North America and China, Kwong said.

yuwei12@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 02/07/2014 page2)