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Beyond Representation? Portrayals of an Overseas Chinese Tycoon in Southeast Asia

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Lee Kong Chian was among the most influential Chinese entrepreneurs in the Asian diasporic landscape from the 1920s to 1960s. In 1903, as a young boy, he migrated from China to then-British Singapore. He went on to build a formidable plantation-based business empire. Known in his heyday as Southeast Asia’s “Rubber King” and “Pineapple King,” he left profound imprints on business, education, and philanthropy that can still be felt in the region today.

Lee Kong Chian lived through tumultuous times: the rise of Chinese nationalism, World War II, British decolonization, independent state formation, and the Cold War. Different impressions of him have been produced and projected at different times in different places: as “a leading capitalist and philanthropist in Nanyang,” “a representative patriot of the Chinese Diaspora,” and “a virtuous pioneer in the revised national history template.” After reviewing these images, Prof. Huang will move “beyond representation” to explore less well-known aspects of Lee’s life including the nature of his economic empire and the political sensitivity of his position at a time when the sun was setting over the British empire.

Huang Jianli is an associate professor in the Department History at the National University of Singapore and a research associate in the university’s East Asian Institute. His many publications include The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (2008), Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order (co-edited, 2003) and Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas (co-edited, 2002). Recent journal articles include “Umbilical Ties: The Framing of Overseas Chinese as the Mother of Revolution” (2011), “Portable Histories in Mobile City Singapore: The (Lack)lustre of Admiral Zheng He” (2009), “Chinese Diasporic Culture and National Identity: The Taming of the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore” (2007), and “Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw” (2006). Further details including contact information are accessible at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/hishjl.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Jianli Huang

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E317
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2375 (650) 723-6530
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2011 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
Untitled2.jpg MA, PhD

Huang Jianli is an associate professor in the Department History at the National University of Singapore and a research associate at the university's East Asian Institute.

His first field of research interest is on the history of student political activism and local governance in Republican China from the 1910s to 1940s. His second area of study is on the postwar Chinese community in Singapore, especially its relationship vis-à-vis China and the larger Chinese diaspora. He has published a monograph on The Politics of Depoliticization in Republican China: Guomindang Policy towards Student Political Activism, 1927-1949 (1996, second edition 1999). A Chinese-language version of this monograph has just been published by the Commercial Press of Beijing in 2010. He has also co-authored a book on The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (2008). In terms of edited volumes, he has co-edited Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order (2003) and Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas (2002).

He has articles in journals such as Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Oriental Studies, East Asian History, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, South East Asian Research, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of Chinese Overseas, International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies and Frontiers of History in China. Some recent journal articles include "Umbilical Ties: The Framing of Overseas Chinese as the Mother of Revolution" (forthcoming, 2011), "Portable Histories in Mobile City Singapore: The (Lack)lustre of Admiral Zheng He" (2009), "Chinese Diasporic Culture and National Identity: The Taming of the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore" (2007), "Positioning the Student Political Activism of Singapore: Articulation, Contestation and Omission" (2006), "Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw" (2006) and "History and the Imaginaries of Big Singapore: Positioning the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall" (2004).

His email contact is hishjl@nus.edu.sg and curriculum vitae is available at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/hishjl

Jianli Huang 2011 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

Xiaowen Zhang

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall C332
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6710 (650) 723-6530
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2011 Visiting Scholar
picture.jpg MA, PhD

Dr. Xiaowen Zhang is a visiting scholar from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China. During his stay, he will conduct a comparative study on enterprises restructuring funds between China and the United States.

Dr. Zhang is currently the director of the Department of Enterprise, in the Institute of Economic System and Management at  NDRC, People's Republic of China. He is in charge of completing various studies involving national economic reforming for China. Dr. Zhang's main fields of interests include the reforming of national-owned enterprises, and relative policy studies in China. He latest research involves projects on the strategic adjusting and restructuring of China's economic industrial structure.

Dr. Zhang received a Ph.D in Management from Haerbin Industry University. He is a graduate of Education Management Science and Engineering from Beijing College of Machine Industry and Management. He holds a B.S. in Metal Material  from Jilin Industry University.

 

Recent Publications:

Dr. Zhang has published more than 80 papers on various major economic and management academic journals in China. Three recent academic works are as follows:

Xiaowen Zhang, Haichao Li, Jianmei Wang, System innovating and Competitiveness, Enterprise Management Publishing Company,March,2010, first Edition.

Qingrui Xu, Zhong Chen, Jin Chen,Xiaoqing Zhao, Xiaowen Zhang, the basic law and pattern of operation and management of china national -owned Enterprises, Publishing Company of Zhejiang University, May,2001, first Edition.

Shuren Liu, Jiuda Zhang, Xiaowen Zhang, The quantitative evaluating of vitality for china enterprises, Publishing Company of China International Broadcasting, 1995, first Edition.

Why Did Japan Stop Growing?

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The Japanese economy has been stagnating for almost two decades. During this event, Takeo Hoshi will describe the findings of a report that he co-authored with Anil Kashyap of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In the report, Hoshi and Kashyap utilized the neoclassical growth model in order to try to explain the causes of this stagnation and to identify policy choices that might help restore growth. Their focus was intentionally on longer-term issues, rather than the immediate challenges that are associated with the fallout from the global recession.

Looking at financial globalization and the collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime they found that by the end of the 1970s Japan could not rely on an undervalued currency to boost its exports. It had to rearrange its production system and other economic institutions to cope with globalization to reduce its reliance on external demand.

Japan's population structure was shifting and becoming increasingly elderly. Aging meant slower growth of the labor force. Declining fertility combined with aging eventually reduced the domestic saving that supported economic expansion during the rapid economic growth period.

Finally, monetary and fiscal policy performed poorly. The Bank of Japan consistently undershot its inflation objective. The government pursued massive fiscal stimulus during the 1990s and 2000s, so much so that Japan went from having the best debt position amongst advanced economies to the worst.

Hoshi is a Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in international economic relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is also a research associate at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research, and is on the board of directors for Union Bank. His major research area is the study of the financial aspects of the Japanese economy, especially corporate finance and governance.

He is a recipient of the 2011 Reischauer International Education award, the 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize, and the 2005 JEA-Nakahara Prize. Among his many publications is Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001), which received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002.

Philippines Conference Room

Takeo Hoshi

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Former Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Former Professor, by courtesy, of Finance at the Graduate School of Business
takeo_hoshi_2018.jpg PhD

Takeo Hoshi was Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), all at Stanford University. He served in these roles until August 2019.

Before he joined Stanford in 2012, he was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he conducted research and taught since 1988.

Hoshi is also Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). His main research interest includes corporate finance, banking, monetary policy and the Japanese economy.

He received 2015 Japanese Bankers Academic Research Promotion Foundation Award, 2011 Reischauer International Education Award of Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana, 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize of Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, and 2005 Japan Economic Association-Nakahara Prize.  His book titled Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001) co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago) received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002.  Other publications include “Will the U.S. and Europe Avoid a Lost Decade?  Lessons from Japan’s Post Crisis Experience” (Joint with Anil K Kashyap), IMF Economic Review, 2015, “Japan’s Financial Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis” (Joint with Kimie Harada, Masami Imai, Satoshi Koibuchi, and Ayako Yasuda), Journal of Financial Economic Policy, 2015, “Defying Gravity: Can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis?” (Joint with Takatoshi Ito) Economic Policy, 2014, “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Eight Lessons from Japan” (with Anil Kashyap), Journal of Financial Economics, 2010, and “Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan” (Joint with Ricardo Caballero and Anil Kashyap), American Economic Review, December 2008.

Hoshi received his B.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.

Former Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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Takeo Hoshi Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations Speaker Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego
Seminars
Shorenstein APARC Winter Quarter Japan Seminar Series
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