East, West and the search for universal values: China's Century?
Lord Stephen Green, Chairman of Asia House, former Chairman of HSBC and UK Trade Minister (2011-2013), will give a lecture on the search for shared values between the East and the West. The lecture will be followed by a question and answer session.
The long human odyssey of self-discovery has now reached a crucial stage. The next hundred years will bring more change than we can easily imagine: more opportunities for more people to achieve the fulfilment of a good life - and more risk of catastrophe and harm to the whole planet than we have ever known before.
Viewed geopolitically, the main question is whether and how the world views of the two most important and influential powers on the Eurasian and global stage - China and America (the one fundamentally Confucian, the other essentially individualist) - can be constructively synthesised. At a deeper level, though, the great question is how the irreversible fact of urbanisation will affect the growth of the human identity in every society, such that the wisdom of others transforms and enriches all the great Eurasian cultures. These questions have huge implications for the human spirit, with all their risks and possibilities for our grandchildren.
After graduating from the University of Oxford in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Stephen Green began his career in 1970 with the British Government’s Ministry of Overseas Development. He went on to gain a Masters in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1977 joined McKinsey & Co Inc, management consultants, with whom he undertook assignments in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Lord Green joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in 1982 and was appointed to the Board of HSBC Holdings plc as an Executive Director in 1998, subsequently becoming Group Chief Executive in 2003 and Group Chairman 2006. He retired from HSBC in December 2010.
Lord Green has served as Chairman of the British Bankers’ Association, a Trustee of the British Museum, and as a non-executive director of BASF. He was created a Life Peer in 2010 and was appointed Minister of State for Trade and Investment in January 2011, retiring from this position in December 2013.
Currently Lord Green is Chairman of the Natural History Museum, Chairman of Asia House and President of The Institute of Export and International Trade.
Stephen Green has written six books – Serving God? Serving Mammon? [1996]; Good Value, Choosing a Better Life in Business [2009]; Reluctant Meister - How Germany's Past is Shaping its European Future [2014]; The European Identity – Historical and Cultural Realities We Cannot Deny [2015]; Brexit and The British [2017]; The Human Odyssey [2019].
This is one of the lectures in the on-going China Centre Seminar series, hosted by the China Centre, Jesus College. The lectures, given by eminent speakers, will cover a broad range of topics and disciplines.
Booking
Attendance is free and booking is not required.
