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China’s rapidly growing local government debt problem has long been recognized by foreign observers as a risk, but inside China, only recently was this problem called out as alarming.  Why has local government debt been allowed to grow with little direct intervention from central authorities?  Based on a forthcoming paper, Oi will show how a “grand bargain” the central authorities entered into with the localities allowed Beijing to take the lion’s share of tax revenues after 1994, but also allowed localities to gain new resources and power as a quid pro quo.  While the bargain provided an expedient and seemingly successful strategy that worked for more than a decade to fuel rapid local state-led growth, it had significant costs that are now becoming increasingly visible.  Because land finance was the core means by which localities raised revenue, Oi also will help explain why the problems with property developers like Evergrande are so important to China’s future economy.   

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and is the Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University. Professor Oi has published extensively on China’s reforms. Recent books include Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Thomas Fingar (Stanford University Press, 2020); Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (Stanford University Press, 2018); and Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, co-edited with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017). Current research is on fiscal reform and local government debt, continuing SOE reforms, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

 

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This event is part of the 2022 Winter webinar series, The Future of China's Economy, sponsored by the APARC China Program.

 

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What is the relationship between internal development and integration into the global economy in developing countries? How and why do state–market relations differ? And do these differences matter in the post-Cold War era of global conflict and cooperation? Drawing on research in China, India, and Russia and examining sectors from textiles to telecommunications, Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism introduces a new theory of sectoral pathways to globalization and development. Adopting a historical and comparative approach, Hsueh's Strategic Value Framework shows how state elites perceive the strategic value of sectors in response to internal and external pressures. Sectoral structures and organization of institutions further determine the role of the state in market coordination and property rights arrangements. The resultant dominant patterns of market governance vary by country and sector within country. These national configurations of sectoral models are the micro-institutional foundations of capitalism, which mediate globalization and development.

Roselyn Hsueh is an associate professor of political science at Temple University, where she co-directs the Certificate in Political Economy. She is the author of Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism: Sectoral Pathways to Globalization in China, India, and Russia (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2022), China’s Regulatory State: A New Strategy for Globalization (Cornell University Press, 2011), and scholarly articles on states and markets, comparative regulation and governance, and political economy of development. She is a frequent commentator on politics, finance and trade, and economic development in China and beyond. BBC World News, The Economist, Foreign Affairs, National Public Radio, and The Washington Post, among other media outlets, have featured her research. Prestigious fellowships, such as the Fulbright Global Scholar Award, have funded international fieldwork and she has served as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

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In China, market institutions are still being developed and private owned enterprises need help to overcome obstacles arising from the imperfection of market institutions. Such help can come from various levels of the government or state-owned enterprises. It is believed that such help is more likely if a major shareholder of the private enterprise has formed a joint venture with a state shareholder, either directly or indirectly. In this talk, Bai Chong-en will discuss ownership connections among state and private investors (ultimate shareholders) and their changes overtime. He will also examine the relationship between the degree of such connection and some important characteristics of the investors. His model suggests that such connections have played an important role in the growth of the private sector. 

BAI Chong-En is the Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor and dean of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University. He is also the director of both the National Institute for Fiscal Studies of Tsinghua University and the Institute for State-Owned Enterprises of Tsinghua University. He earned his PhD degree in economics from Harvard University. His research areas include institutional economics, economic growth and development, public economics, finance, corporate governance, and Chinese economy.

BAI is a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the “14th Five-Year Plan” National Development Planning Expert Committee, the Chinese Economists 50 Forum, the China Finance 40 Forum, and Chinainfo 100. He was a member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China from 2015 to 2018. He served as Adjunct Vice-President of Beijing State-Owned Assets Management Co., Ltd. from August 2011 to December 2012. He was a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution from 2006 to 2007.

 

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This event is part of the 2022 Winter webinar series, The Future of China's Economy, sponsored by the APARC China Program.

 

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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At the end of 2021 China Evergrande Group—one of China’s biggest property developers—finally defaulted on its bonds. The default didn’t spark a Lehman Moment—as widely prophesied—or any significant market upheaval, but it’s increasingly clear that Evergrande’s problems mark the start of a momentous shift in how China’s economy grows. Over the past 18 months, Beijing has induced a slowdown of the property sector with the goal of better ensuring financial sector stability and the sustainability of property sector growth. However, it has resulted in defaults, restructuring, and consolidation among China’s largest developers, and has implication for local government finance and the pace of economic growth. This talk will discuss the challenges posed by Evergrande’s decline and imminent restructuring, what Beijing is trying to achieve by reining in the property sector, and what risks are involved.

 

Dinny McMahon is the author of “China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle,” a ground up look at the mechanics of China’s political economy, which he wrote while a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. He later moved to MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s think tank in Chicago, where he researched China’s efforts to clean up its financial system. Dinny started his career as a financial journalist in China, spending six years in Beijing with The Wall Street Journal, and four years with Dow Jones Newswires in Shanghai, where he also contributed to the Far Eastern Economic Review. Dinny is currently working on a project for the Wilson Center on China’s efforts to reduce its reliance on the US dollar. He also provides independent research on China’s financial system for financial services firms.

 

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This event is part of the 2022 Winter webinar series, The Future of China's Economy, sponsored by the APARC China Program.

 

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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In September 2020, President Xi Jinping declared that China would achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.  This climate pledge is widely considered the most ambitious of all made to date, especially since the world’s largest carbon-emitting nation is still at a developing stage and has not yet achieved its emissions peak.  With the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) on the horizon, the world is eager to learn about any potential new pledges from the Chinese leadership.  This talk will provide an overview of climate governance under President Xi Jinping and draw on the presenter’s work on local implementation of air pollution policies in China to discuss potential lessons for its ongoing efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Shiran Victoria Shen’s research primarily examines the organizational causes of and responses to environmental crises, with particular understanding of how local politics shape air pollution and climate management in China.  Professor Shen graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with high honors from Swarthmore College and holds an M.S. in civil and environmental engineering and a Ph.D. in political science, both from Stanford University.

 

 

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This event is part of the 2021 Fall webinar series, Perfect Storm: Climate Change in Asia, sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

 

 

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Co-sponsored by the Stanford Center at Peking University.

In honor of its release, contributors Mary Bullock, Thomas Fingar, and David M. Lampton will join editor Anne Thurston for a panel discussion of their volume Engaging China: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations (Columbia University Press, 2021).

Recent years have seen the U.S.-China relationship rapidly deteriorate. Engaging China brings together leading China specialists—ranging from academics to NGO leaders to former government officials—to analyze the past, present, and future of U.S.-China relations. Bullock, Fingar, Lampton, and Thurston will reflect upon the complex and multifaceted nature of American engagement with China since the waning days of Mao’s rule. What initially motivated U.S.’ rapprochement with China? Until recent years, what logic and processes have underpinned the U.S. foreign policy posture towards China? What were the gains and the missteps made during five decades of America’s engagement policy toward China? What is the significance of our rapidly deteriorating bilateral relations today? Speakers will tackle these questions and more at this critical time when tensions between the U.S. and China continue to intensify.

For more information about Engaging China or to purchase a copy, please click here.

Mary Bullock, president emerita of Agnes Scott College, is an educator and scholar of U.S. – China relations. She served as the founding executive vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University from 2012-2015. Previous positions include distinguished visiting professor at Emory University, director of the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and director of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China. She is vice-chair of the Asia Foundation, a trustee of the Henry Luce Foundation, and a member of the Schwarzman Academic Advisory Committee and the Council on Foreign Relations. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese history from Stanford University. Her most recent publications include The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China (2011) and, as co-editor, Medical Transitions in Twentieth Century China (2014).
 

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar's most recent books are The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020).
 

David M. Lampton is Senior Fellow at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute and Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins--SAIS. Immediately prior to his current post he was Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2019-2020. For more than two decades prior to that he was Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Lampton is former Chairman of the The Asia Foundation, former President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and former Dean of Faculty at SAIS. Among many written works, academic and popular, his most recent book (with Selina Ho and Cheng-Chwee Kuik) is Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2020). He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in political science where, as an undergraduate student, he was a firefighter. Lampton has an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies. He is a Life Trustee on the Board of Trustees of Colorado College and was in the US Army Reserve in the enlisted and commissioned ranks.

Anne Thurston is the director of the Grassroots China Initiative, where she works with local NGOs in China. Thurston is a former associate professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, assistant professor at Fordham University, and was a China staff member at the Social Science Research Council. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thurston is also a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations. Thurston is the author of numerous publications, including The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet (2015), and Muddling Toward Democracy: Political Change in Grass Roots China (1998). She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.