We are entering what Institute of International Studies Director Steven Weber calls the Sino-American Era, with accompanying tensions over intellectual property rights (which underpin both Silicon Valley and Hollywood), currency, competition for oil, and the environmental destruction that has followed China’s rapid growth. (Already, coal burning in China contributes to air pollution in Los Angeles.) And no one can be sure of the long-term stability of China’s authoritarian government, as was highlighted by recent demonstrations in Hong Kong.

Berkeley has responded with a multidisciplinary China Initiative, which will get a boost from the Tien Center now under construction. Schell and other faculty, meanwhile, are busy building bridges to Chinese academics in recognition that California’s leading university, which has long been an educational beacon to Chinese immigrants and Chinese-Americans, has inherited a unique opportunity and obligation to help peacefully manage an increasingly vital and risky relationship with the largest nation on earth.

A note on our new design: I admit to a degree of surprise in discovering how many times the magazine has changed its name, format, and design (see page 1 for some of them)—and to a degree of delight, particularly since the designs trace the aesthetic and cultural times in which they lived. Michiko Toki undertook the new design mindful of our goal to create both a Berkeley forum on leading-edge ideas in science and culture, and our new magazine-within-a-magazine, called "Sather Gate," that in a spirited way focuses on news and information that connects alumni to each other and the campus. With some pro-bono help from an international branding firm, Turner Duckworth, we believe she has succeeded brilliantly. As always, we welcome your comments.—K.T.

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