WSD Handa Distinguished Annual Lecture - Leverage to Steer the Chinese Economy: Xi Jinping as System Builder

While attention is often given to Xi Jinping’s personalistic rule, Xi has also maintained a consistent focus on institutional design, and on creating the mechanisms that allow him to rule effectively.

As China’s policy objectives have become steadily more ambitious—beyond what can be achieved simply by top-down commands—a new system has taken shape, marked by the proliferation of instruments designed to allow the Party and government to steer the economy indirectly. This new economic system has distinctive strengths and weaknesses, and is subject to new types of stress, quite different from those of reform era China to which we had grown accustomed.

This lecture explores the most important changes and their current and future implications.

Video recording

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About the speaker

Barry Naughton is the So Kwanlok Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego. Naughton’s work on the Chinese economy has focused on market transition; industry and technology; foreign trade; and political economy.

His first book, Growing Out of the Plan, won the Ohira Prize in 1996, and a new edition of his popular survey and textbook, The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth, appeared in 2018. His most recent book is The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy, 1978-2020. Naughton did his dissertation research in China in 1982, and received his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 1986.

Chair: Professor Steve Tsang, Director, SOAS China Institute

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception until 7.15pm.

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. 

Please note that this lecture is taking place on campus and will not be live-streamed.

Image by Denys Nevozhai via Unsplash