Panel doesn’t believe innovation can be thwarted by politics

Will US Presidentelect Donald Trump, who has challenged globalization and trading agreements, be a threat to innovation and information flow between Silicon Valley and the rest of the world after he takes office?

Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs to the US that he said were lost to globalization.

He probably won’t be able to do that, according to a group of scholars and entrepreneurs at a seminar which was organized by participants from the US, Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

About 10 speakers from academia and industry, including Stanford University, the National University of Singapore and Silicon Valleybased startups, shared their thoughts on innovation in a globalized environment at the China-US-Singapore Globalized Economic Innovation Forum at the Santa Clara Convention Center on Saturday.

President Xi Jinping urged all nations in his keynote speech at the Business 20 Summit in Hangzhou in September to work together to build an innovative and open world economy.

Citing Xi’s remarks that “the world economy should become interconnected and inclusive to forge interactive synergy and strengthen the foundation for win-win outcomes”, Ren Faqiang, deputy consul general at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco, said innovation is the key to unleashing growth potential.

Pedram Mokrian, professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford, refuted the assumption that “the start of the Trump administration will bring the end to globalization”.

The best practices and the best types of innovation that happen in one part of the world (in the Silicon Valley) are, and will be, just freely transferred to entrepreneurs and innovators in other parts of the world, Mokrain said, adding that this kind of exchange and ecosystem won’t terminate “regardless whatever administration is in place” in a globalized world.

Trump recently made headlines by successfully reaching a deal with the air conditioner maker Carrier to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in Indiana instead of outsourcing them to Mexico.

“However, this kind of practice (of keeping low-technology job in the US) won’t help America gain international competence,” said Song Zhaoli, associate professor in management and organization in the business school at the National University of Singapore, who is in charge of a Chinese-student exchange program. “America’s core competence is its innovation and technology, not the low-paying manufacturing jobs,” he said.

“Innovators all over the world need to communicate, to share and to learn from each other,” said Zhang Ruwei, one of the seminar organizers with the Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs Association (US).

He said his association was established in September in New York to function as a platform through which researchers, scholars, policymakers and entrepreneurs in the US and China can integrate resources and share academic research.

Barry Chang, mayor of Cupertino, said, “Without globalization and innovation, the valley will lose its luster.”