Time for China to rise to the occasion

This week marks my 17th visit to China since 2001, when I came on behalf of Scandinavian television.

Since my last visit to Beijing for the Olympic Games, the world has seen tremendous change. In just a few months, the lingering energy of the Games gave way to fear and anxiety about the global economy. The situation in the West appears grim with crashing stock markets, staggering unemployment rates and other manifestations of the global economic crisis.

From the different vantage points offered by my work travels, only one place remains mostly unshaken in the economic storm - China. As a parent to an 8-year-old son, I am investing his future in China by enrolling him in Chinese language classes. Because of my son's cultural background, he is already fluent in four languages: French and English because he lives in Paris, Danish because of my heritage and German because of my wife's heritage.