This talk is an overview of the changing role of foreign investment in Chinese workplaces. Foreign investment inflows helped transform the Chinese industrial landscape in the 1990s. As ownership has become blurred and increasingly mixed between domestic-foreign and public-private in China, preferential policies and laws for foreign-invested firms have diminished. A more level playing field has raised the stakes for foreign business and led to their increased participation in national debates on labor legislation and legal protections for workers. This talk will focus on this new role for foreign investors and how it is changing Chinese laws and the Chinese workplace.

Professor Gallagher studies Chinese politics, law and society, and comparative politics. She is currently working on two projects. The first, funded by a Fulbright Research Award and the National Science Foundation, examines the development of rule of law in China by examining the dynamics of legal mobilization of Chinese workers. "The Rule of Law in China: If They Build It, Who Will Come?" focuses on the demand-side of rule of law through an exploration of legal aid plaintiffs in Shanghai, a four-city household survey on legal knowledge, attitude, and practice, and in-depth case analysis of labor disputes. The second project examines labor standards and practices in four Chinese regions. One goal is to find if there are diffusion effects in legislation, court behavior, and labor practices across different regions. Another goal is to look for evidence of a "race to the bottom" in labor standards and social welfare not between China and other competing economies, but within China's own domestic economy.

This talk is part of the Stanford China Program Winter 2009 China Seminar Series titled "30 Years of Reform and Opening in China: How Far from the Cage?"

A central element of Deng Xiaoping's political reforms initiated during the 1980s was to reform the ways that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) related to other national institutions (the state and military), sectors of society, and the Party itself.  While there have been significant ups and downs over the past thirty years, many elements of Deng's original vision for Party reform have been carried out and continue to be pursued. As a result, today's Chinese Communist Party is a stronger institution that has survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and other communist party-states worldwide. Yet, it faces new challenges, to which it must adapt. Professor Shambaugh's lecture will assess the CCP's adaptations and reforms over the past three decades.

David Shambaugh has been Professor of Political Science & International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University since 1996.  He directed the Elliott School's Sigur Center for Asian Studies from 1996-98, and since that time has been the founding Director of the China Policy Program.  He has also been a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program and Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution since 1998.  In 2008 he was also appointed an Honorary Research Professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Before joining the faculty at George Washington, he previously taught at the University of London's School of Oriental & African Studies (1987-1996), served as Editor of The China Quarterly (1991-1996), and directed the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1986-87).  He received his B.A. in East Asian Studies from the Elliott School at George Washington, an M.A. in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.  Professor Shambaugh has published widely-having authored or edited 25 books, approximately 200 articles and book chapters, and 100 opinion-editorials and book reviews.  He is a frequent commentator on Chinese and Asian affairs in the international media, sits on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals, and has served as a consultant to various governments, research institutes, and private corporations. 

This talk is part of the Stanford China Program Winter 2009 China Seminar Series titled "30 Years of Reform in China: How Far from the Cage?"

Iain Johnston is the Laine Professor of China in World Affairs at Harvard University's department of government. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His research and teaching interests include socialization in international institutions, the analysis of identity in the social sciences, and ideational sources of strategic choice, mostly with reference to China and the Asia-Pacific region. He is the author of "Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History" (Princeton 1995) and "Social States: China in International Institutes, 1980-2000" (Princeton 2008), and co-editor of "Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power" (Routledge 1999), "New Directions in the Study of China's Foreign Policy" (Stanford 2006), and "Crafting Cooperation: Regional Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge 2007).

The first in a series entitled "The Implications of Demographic Change in China," this colloquium features Professor Feldman speaking to us about his research program on demographic issues and statistics concerning the sex ratio in China. His joint research with scholars from Xi’an Jiaotong University is focused on the role of son preference in marriage customs. He will also talk about recent work on rural-urban migrants and how this migration affects the well-being of both the migrants and their elderly parents who remain in the rural areas. Gender is a factor in both migration and the pattern of remittance.

Marcus Feldman is the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies at Stanford University. He uses applied mathematics and computer modeling to simulate and analyze the process of evolution. He helped develop the quantitative theory of cultural evolution, which he applies to issues in human behavior, and also the theory of niche construction, which has wide applications in ecology and evolutionary analysis.

The demographic billionaires China and India are experiencing rapid population changes and social shifts, fast economic growth, poverty decline, a booming modern business sector, and rising human capital in the labor force age groups.  Because 37% of the entire world population lives in these two countries, the breathtaking transformations in India and China are causing major dislocations in the global economy and big changes in measures of world development.  This colloquium will highlight the most important demographic, social, and economic trends happening in China and India today, will compare and contrast the current situations and future prospects of these two powerhouses, and will focus on implications for Asia and the world today and in the coming decade.

Dr. Judith Banister is the director of Global Demographics for The Conference Board, the world’s premier business research and business membership organization, with offices in New York, Brussels, Beijing, Hong Kong, and New Delhi.  She is an expert on the demography of China and received her Ph.D. in demography and development from Stanford.

China's Harmonious Society colloquium series

co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies

Since 2006, the official doctrine of China's Communist Party calls for the creation of a "harmonious society" (HeXieSheHui). This policy, identified with the Hu Jintao leadership, acknowledges the new problems that have emerged as China continues its amazing economic growth. The economy is booming but so are tensions from rising inequality, environmental damage, health problems, diverse ethnicities, and attempts to break the "iron rice bowl." In this series of colloquia, leading authorities will discuss the causes of these tensions, their seriousness, and China's ability to solve these challenges.

Nancy Shulman's talk topic will be posted soon.

Nancy Shulman conducts laboratory and clinical research in the area of HIV therapeutics, with focus on antiretroviral resistance and treatment strategies of experienced patients, the impact of antiretroviral treatment on HIV co-receptor utilization, and HIV in China. she received her MD from Kansas University Medical School and holds a BA in biochemistry from University of Texas, Austin. She is a doctor specializing in internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious diseases.

"Healthcare Coverage for 1.3 Billion: China's Odyssey"

Karen Eggleston

Media coverage as well as the academic literature give conflicting appraisals of China's reality: Is China's healthcare system on the verge of collapse? Why is healthcare so expensive and difficult to access in contemporary China? Have reforms 'marketizing' healthcare drastically undermined progress in assuring affordable access for all? Or do hospitals and other providers constitute a last bastion of state control and bureaucratized monopoly in the name of equal access? Chinese analysts and policy advisers have engaged in a sometimes acrimonious debate; some champion a government-led, National Health Service-like model, while others passionately argue that market forces should play a greater role. In this talk, Karen Eggleston will present a brief overview of China's health system reforms and current developments.

Karen Eggleston focuses her research on comparative healthcare systems during economic development and transition from central planning to market-based economies. Her interests include the impact of payment incentives on healthcare insurer and provider behavior; chronic disease management; and incentives surrounding health behaviors such as the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, overuse of antibiotics, and smoking. She earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii.