China once again is in the midst of a major reshuffling of leadership. The upcoming 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will form a new Politburo and its Standing Committee. While the current top leaders, including Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, will most likely remain in power for the next term, a new generation of leaders, known as the "Fifth Generation," is poised to emerge in the national leadership.

Candidates to succeed Hu, Wen and other top leaders will become known within a year. Dr. Li will present his analysis of who the front-runners of the Fifth Generation are, how the selection of the possible successors reflects the changing nature of Chinese elite politics, in what aspects this rising generation of leaders differs from their predecessors, and how these differences will change the way in which China will be governed.

Cheng Li is the William R. Kenan Professor of Government at Hamilton College in New York and a visiting fellow at the newly-established John L. Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

Dr. Li grew up in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. In 1985, he came to the United States where he received an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University. He is the author of Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform, and Chinas Leaders: The New Generation, and the editor of the recent book, Bridging Minds Across the Pacific: The Sino-U.S. Educational Exchange 1978-2003. Dr. Li is also a columnist for the Stanford University journal, China Leadership Monitor.

Dr. Li has advised a wide range of U.S. government, education, research, business and not-for-profit organizations on work in China. Dr. Li is a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a trustee of the Institute of Current World Affairs, a member of the Academic Advisory Group of the Congressional U.S.-China Working Group, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Task Force on U.S. policy toward China, a member of Committee of 100, and a member of the U.S. National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Paul Godwin's research focuses on Chinese security policy and defense modernization. His articles include "China's Defense Establishment: The Hard Lessons of Incomplete Modernization" and "The PLA's Leap into the 21st Century: Implications for the U.S." He is a frequent contributor to journals and edited volumes on China's military. In 1987 he was a visiting professor at t he Chinese People's Liberation Army National Defense University in Beijing. He received his Ph.D. in political science form University of Minnesota.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Two contradictory trends are emerging in China's countryside: one is an attempt to increase upper level control over village finances to reduce peasant burdens and curb cadre corruption; the other is a new policy to require the village party secretary to stand for popular election, in addition to the village committee head. Based on recent fieldwork in China's countryside, Jean Oi will describe the fiscal problems that emerged as the reforms cut peasant burdens and how the new "two-ballot system" works for the selection of village leaders. She will then consider whether these two policy trends are creating new and potentially more serious problems for local governance.

Jean Oi is author of Rural China Takes Off: Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

Photo by Jesse Warren

When Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao assumed power in 2002, they immediately put a new populist and egalitarian spin on Chinese policy pronouncements. To the surprise of many, they then followed through with a systematic reorientation of economic policy in a "left" direction. Policy has shifted away from growth at all costs, and toward policies that favor regional redistribution, reduce urban bias and support rural development. Budget allocations for health and education have increased, and the commitment to the environment has been stepped up.

So far, these policies can be characterized as moderate and overdue efforts to address problems that emerged in the course of rapid economic growth. But there is implicit tension with pro-growth policies. Politically, Hu and Wen's policies balanced those of Jiang Zemin's coalition of "winners." At the 17th Party Congress in 2007, Hu will attempt to consolidate his power and redefine the policy direction.

Barry Naughton teaches at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His new book The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. was published by MIT Press this year. He received his Ph.D. in economics and M.A. in international relations from Yale University and holds a B.A. in Chinese language and literature from University of Washington.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies

The year ahead in China's politics promises a level of activity and rhetorical heat comparable to American politics during a presidential campaign year. In the fall of 2007, the Chinese Communist Party will convene its 17th national congress. Because the congress offers the occasion for new directions in China's domestic and foreign policies and for changes in China's top leadership, preparations for party congress are already heating up the political atmosphere in Beijing. This series offers several perspectives by prominent China scholars and analysts on prevailing trends in leadership politics and policy issues heading into the 17th party congress and on what may emerge from it. Professor Alice Miller, organizer of this series, will set the scene.

This talk is part of the "China's Year of Decision" colloquium series sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies.

In the mid-1990s, North Korea experienced a famine that killed up to a million people. In this talk, Professor Haggard will examine the origins of the famine, the subsequent humanitarian aid effort, including the problems of diversion of aid, and the market reforms that followed in the famine's wake. These political economy questions have played an important backdrop to the current negotiations over a resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue.

Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: the Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990), The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995, with Robert Kaufman) and The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000). In addition to Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform (forthcoming 2006) he has completed a report on North Korean refugees for the US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea and is initiating a project with TaiMing Cheung and Barry Naughton on Chinese-North Korean economic relations.