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Home › Forums › Short Online Seminars › China And The World, Spring 2023 › Week 3 - China and the Global Economy (February 14)
Kirstjen Pollock.
Crystal HsiaThere are many books about China's economic reforms and its expanding economic influence. Some recommended volumes include Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750, 2015; David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power, 2013; ;Howard French, China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa, 2014; and Damien Ma, In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade, 2013. These, however, are several years old.
The best work now on China's economic reach is being produced in the form of think tank studies. Here are a few that I've found useful. For your students, however, I'd look to newspaper coverage which often takes us into people's lives in a way to make larger points.
McKinsey Global Institute, China and the World 2020 (pdf below)
Carnegie Endowment, How China Became an Innovation Powerhouse, 2023
Carnegie Endowment, Why Brazil Sought Chinese Investments to Diversify its Manufacturing Economy, 2022
Johns Hopkins University, China-Africa Research Initiative, How China and Zambia Co-Created a Debt Tragedy of the Commons," 2021.
Deloitte, "If you want to prosper, consider building roads," 2019 (pdf below)
Lecture 4 - Economic Superpower
Kirstjen PollockToday's lecture brought up 3 points for me immediately:
1. Recent moves to increase the working population: China’s retirement age — changing by 2055 ; inheritance laws in Sichuan . The Sichuan case has really upset my family's helper, who feels like men have complete freedom now to have as many children as they like, outside of wedlock. However, as an economic move to increase the working population, it bears merit.
2. The mention of China’s ghost towns. All around, there are so many unfinished apartment buildings, and they definitely have created a housing bubble. There have been many stories recently about people living in unfinished homes, but I haven't seen the government response yet. Has anyone seen it?
3. China’s trading partners — can anyone help me figure this graphic out? I don't quite understand who is importing into China and where China's exports are going. I would like to see some stats on this and would appreciate a good source.
Richard RosalesI read an article about China and its global relationship. I was shocked to learn that China is the #1 exporter of students. The thing that surprises me is that the political rhetoric suggests that China considers it's education system to be second to none. In reality China sends over 540,000 students to study mainly in the US, Australia, and the UK.
Kirstjen PollockHi Richard,
Education is a huge topic in China. When I think about China exporting students, many things come to mind.
First is that right after the Cultural Revolution, when economic reform became a key focus, many students were sent abroad partly in effort to bring global knowledge, expertise, and practices into China. I have a few colleagues who were in that first wave of international students from China. To this day, though many Chinese students study abroad, most of them return to their home regions, and the country is able to leverage their knowledge to its own benefit.
Secondly, I used to teach students who were aiming to study abroad. There are many training schools designed to serve that specific purpose. This is partly due to the one-child policy; if a family has more than 1 child, the second child cannot attend Chinese public schools or qualify for Chinese universities, and so they must pursue alternative routes to education. There was even a little bit of a trap in some US universities, where students would be accepted to a provisional language program and only allowed to matriculate into the general university after qualifying in English. Some students got stuck in the language program instead of going on to select majors.
Note that Covid is drawing a new landscape in terms of Chinese students abroad, and we are likely to see continued change with the elimination of the one-child policy. In fact, many schools that catered to these second children have already closed or are shifting their target market due to changes that have already occurred. However, there remains a strong desire for Chinese students, whether first children or second children, to go abroad to learn and to pick up foreign languages along the way.
clay dubeUSC has long had students from China, at last count we had over 6,000 in degree programs. Usually USC or Purdue have the largest Chinese enrollment in the US. Prior to the pandemic, there were about 372,000 studying at all levels. The pandemic and economic slowdown in China has affected demand, along with anti-Asian speech and violence, though many still want to study abroad. But the shrinking number of young people mean that there simply aren't as many students as a generation ago. Also, China's vast expansion of tertiary opportunities means that there are more opportunties at home (when I taught there in 1982-85, there were fewer college students than in California). Now China has 25 m or so college students. Because of the favoritism for local students and the large number of schools there, virtually all Beijing and Shanghai high school grads can go to college. Competition overall, however, remains brutal for the best schools - and the competition starts early. There are several good documentaries about the higher ed exam. We screened an interesting film a couple years ago that focused on a community centered on an exam preparation school.
Jerrica KeaneThe video "How China Became an Innovation Powerhouse" does a really interesting job discussing the political and structural differences of the US and China in terms of innovation. Whereas we usually consider China and the US to be competing economic systems (and they often are), but it was great to see a source that considers how two vastly different political and economic systems can both coexist and, dare I say, lean on each other. That said, the perspective also considers how the command economy and Communism political landscape in China also carved out space for Chinese ideas to grow and start-ups to flourish. The video highlights how Chinese government intervention does force rapid innovations. This is contradictory to the ideals of the US where innovation is supported by free markets, individual competition and economic freedom. A main takeaway from the video is that global relationships should not be reduced, but rather learning and experimenting with different ways of thinking and operating helps research and the development of new technologies. Competition and working relationships combined foster innovation.
Jerrica KeaneAs others have mentioned, I don't think that students desire to study aboard negatively reflects the national education system in China. There are many important opportunities presented to students who chose to study aboard. As someone mentioned, students leave to learn new methods and practices with the goal to return to China with diverse knowledge that will be applied to the Chinese market. This occurs in many other countries as well. This of course is intensified with the intense compeitiveness of post-secondary education in China, as noted.
Jerrica KeaneHi All: I thought yesterdays discussion of the LGBTQ+ rights and awareness in China to be interesting. Thank you for sharing the website https://www.chinalgbt.org created by Ashley Jiang. As I was exploring it more, I realized that Courtney, we teach Ethnic studies together, and I use a video on intersectionality created by Ashley. Here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXJ4Dbdm1ks if anyone wants to check it out!
Courtney CaldwellI focused on the Carnegie Endowment, How China Became an Innovation Powerhouse, 2023 video/article. I found it really interesting to look at the differences in what society says is the "conventional" way to be successful and competitive, but how China really proves that conventional wisdom wrong. While in the US the ways to be competitive are through democracy, free markets, and capitalism, China does quite the opposite and as the video states has become an innovation powerhouse.
The part of this video I found particularly fasinating, and it actually made complete sense, was the part that discussed "the Great Firewall". The Chinese government implementing this great firewall actually had a side benefit. Because American influence was blocked by this firewall, it actually forced the Chinese to innovate and flourish on their own and kept American business influence out. While the video acknowledges it's absolutely possible to get AROUND the firewall, it still creates this benefit for Chinese businesses.
I also appreciated the perspective brought up at the end about how a lot of people in the US look at maintaining ties with chinese researchers and innovators as a way to "steal" technology. While this does present a problem sometimes, more often, people from China and the US WANT to work together and it actually drives innovation forward. The suggestion that instead of perceiving it to be a threat, we should LEARN from these relationships, and adapt these developments to fit our needs in the US is one I think is important. The Chinese don't have to be a threat in terms of innovation, competition helps drive the innovation and working together can really only push us forward in terms of technological advancements.
Courtney CaldwellI agree with this, I don't think it's a negative reflection on the education system in China either. I'm not completely sure, but at certain point I think students in China are either chosen/accepted to/eliminated from/age out of the schooling system so seeking education elsewhere may be an opportunity to become more competitive in the "real world". One of the videos from last week (about Australia/China relations) actually had students discussing reasoning for studying abroad. A lot of it tied to building those relationships, and learning about methods/practices that will be ultra beneficial upon the students return to China. It broadens horizons for students, and provides diverse perspectives that can be really helpful and also, alleviates pressures created by the competitiveness of the post-secondary education system in China as well.
Brendon McGirrI found the information this week very interesting
Looking at How Technology Made China an Economic Powerhouse, I found the ideas behind the benefits of the Great Firewall very interesting. When I think of it, I see it as a way of restricting information to the citizens and allowing a controlled narrative. The idea that it was porous in allowing innovation and the rise of Chinese competition to larger, Western companies is a unique take on the situation.
In the lecture, I found the slide that shows the contrasts of China's economic influence a good reference for the growth that China has made, but the steps it still needs to make going forward. As a movie nerd, I know how much China influences Hollywood's decision making on certain scenes/characters that can be included due to China being the largest film market. However, their own film industry has a limited reach and still needs to grow. It invest almost half of the world's contributions into renewables, while also being one of the largest polluters in the world. China has rapidly become a global economic power, yet still has major roadblocks ahead of it.
The largest roadblock may be its aging population. I have seen the issues Japan is facing with its aging population, and for comparison compared their pyramids on populationpyramid.net. While not a direct corelation, you can see a similar structure separated by about 15-20 years, which means this will be a concern for sustained growth going forward. This will really push China to become even more innovative, especially in AI as mentioned in the Carnegie video.
Brendon McGirrYour last paragraph is a very intersting point. While people sometimes paint the US and China as rivals, they are really tied together in innovation and trade. We should be leaning into building these relationships, as it benefits everyone in the long run. However, preconceived notions of each other may make that very difficult.
Brendon McGirrSomething that I wanted to add. I teach International Baccalaurate, and there are many teachers in my online communities that are from China. I looked it up and international schools have grown from 22 in 2001 to over 500 now. With how IB credits are accepted around the world, this encourages more Chinese students to study abroad.
clay dubeHi Folks,
I mentioned the pervasiveness of Hikvision cameras in the US and elsewhere and security worries that some have over them. Here Hikvision hits back. The story is from Axios, 2/17.
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3. China's Hikvision sues U.S. over FCC ban |
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Chinese video surveillance firm Hikvision is suing the U.S. government as well as the Federal Communications Commission over a November order limiting the sale of its products here. Why it matters: Hikvision is one of a number of Chinese firms that has seen its ability to sell goods in the U.S. limited by the federal government. Details: In its suit, filed Monday in a Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C., Hikvision argues that the FCC exceeded its authority in issuing the November order, among other claims. It seeks to have the court overturn the FCC's order.
The big picture: Hikvision isn't the first Chinese company to sue over federal restrictions on its business. Huawei previously took the U.S. government to court arguing that authorities overstepped their bounds. |
Courtney CaldwellHey Kirstjen,
the second part of your post actually really struck me because I've actually been wondering about this since my trip to China in 2018. The first article you linked (the one on the word living) references the unfinished massive buildings on the outskirts of Xi'an. I went back to my photos from my trip and vividly remember taking photos of these MASSIVE buildings that are sitting empty and/or unfinished. I would be interested to know as well what the government response is or will be to fix the housing bubble caused by these so called ghost towns. It was actually quite wild to see, and almost felt a bit post-apocalyptic to me.