International Workshop on China 1978 - 2018: Economy, Society and Environment
On 15-16 June 2019 the China Centre, Jesus College hosted, in West Court, a joint workshop with the Development Research Centre (DRC) of the State Council of China.
The workshop was the second in a series of joint annual workshops organised by the two institutions. Each workshop is based around a jointly produced book edited by Vice Minister Zhang Laiming (DRC) and Dr Jin Zhang (China Centre, Jesus College). The books form part of a jointly edited series China in the World, published by Routledge, under the general editorship of Professor Peter Nolan (University of Cambridge) and President Li Wei (DRC).
This year’s workshop discussed a set of papers from the two books China 1978-2018 – Economy and Marketisation and China 1978-2018 – Social and Environmental Developments. The workshop included a book launch of the English language version of the two books, each containing chapters written by Chinese scholars, which will be published in English by Routledge in 2020.
The Chinese participants were led by Vice-Minister Zhang Laiming, Deputy Head of the DRC. He was accompanied by Senior Research Fellows, Tao Pingsheng, Li Jianwei, Hou Yongzhi, Ma Mingjie, Zhang Liang, Tian Hui, Chen Jianpeng and three other researchers from the DRC.
Western participants include Professor Peter Nolan, Director, China Centre, Jesus College; Dr Zhang Jin, Deputy Director, China Centre, Jesus College; Professor Robert Ash, SOAS, University of London; Professor Christopher Cramer, SOAS, University of London; Professor Simon Deakin, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge; Professor Paul Dembinski, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Dr Shailaja Fennell (1991), Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge; Professor Sir Brian Heap, Former Master, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge; Professor Christopher Howe, SOAS, University of London; Mr Michael Kuczynski, Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge; Professor Michael Landesmann, Former Director, Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies; Dr Li Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Associate Professor Matthew McCartney, University of Oxford; Mr Peter Sowden, Editor, Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, Routledge; and Assistant Professor Isabella Weber, Goldsmiths, UCL and University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The following topics were discussed in the workshop sessions: reform of state-owned enterprises; population policy and demographic structure; long-term structural change in the Chinese economy; reform of science and technology; income distribution; financial markets; social governance; pollution control; divergence and divergence in the long-run development of China and the West.
