India China Institute

The Future of Inequality in China
2009-04-09 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Economic inequality has grown sharply in China in recent decades, making a formerly egalitarian society into one of the most unequal countries in its region. What are the forces shaping this transformation and how are they likely to play out in the near future? Professor Carl Riskin will address these questions and other questions in his upcoming talk.Carl Riskin is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at Queens College, CUNY and Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. He is the author of China’s Political Economy: The Quest for Development since 1949 and of books and articles dealing with the impact of economic development on poverty, inequality and human development more generally. He has also done extensive consulting work for the United Nations Development Programme in China and elsewhere.

Smoke and Mirrors
2009-04-08 18:30 - 20:00
Author and journalist Pallavi Aiyar will discuss her book Smoke and Mirrors, a personal account of her years spent living and working in China. Moderated by Siddhartha Deb, Writer in Residence at The New School Pallavi Aiyar is the Beijing-based China Bureau Chief for The Hindu group of publications. She has reported from across China for over six years. She is the winner of the 2007 Prem Bhatia Memorial Award for excellence in political reporting and analysis, the youngest ever recipient of the prize. She was also awarded a Reuters Foundation Fellowship at Oxford in the same year. Aside from her work as a journalist, she has taught news writing to students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and served as an advisor to the Confederation of Indian Industry on China-related issues. Smoke and Mirrors is a smart, insightful book about modern China. What sets Aiyar’s work apart is that it is not written by an academic or expert, nor is it told from either a Western or Chinese viewpoint…… she has discovered a way of bridging her native and adopted homes. As someone well acquainted with the problems of Asian development, she easily sees past the smoke and mirrors of China’s shiny new metropolises” International Herald Tribune“

Transforming China: The Impact of Buddhism and Islam on Premodern and Modern China
2009-04-02 18:00 - 20:00
Professors Tansen Sen and Yihong Liu will lead a panel discussion on religion in China, with a focus on the contributions of Buddhism and Islam. As decorated scholars, their discussion will help illuminate the cultural cross-currents that have and will continue to influence the complicated cultural milieu of this increasingly important region.Discussion moderated by Faisal Devji, Associate Professor of History, The New School for Social ResearchYihong Liu is a researcher and scholar on Islamic and Chinese philosophy. An official member of the Columbia Society of Comparative philosophy, she is a supervisor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a Professor at the Institute of Philosophy.Tansen Sen is an Associate Professor of Asian History and Religions at Baruch College, The City University of New York. Currently he is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He is the author of Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400. He has also guest edited a special issue of the journal China Report entitled Kolkata and China.

Harmony between Urban Development & Environmental Planning: The successful case of Xi’an, China
2009-03-31 16:30 - 17:30
WANG Jun, Deputy Mayor of Xi’an, will deliver a talk about urban development and environmental planning in Xi’an. As Deputy Mayor, Mr. WANG is utilizing ideas of modernization, fashion, and environmental awareness in the building of a new Xi’an. He will talk about his proposed concept of building a new Xi’an that reflects the history, culture, science, and innovation of such a historically important city. In September 2007, Mr. Wang led the Xi’an government delegation to London and won the bidding to host the 2011 World Horticultural Expo. This international exposition will be a six-month long event (April through October 2011) hosted in the Chanba Bio District of Xi’an, China. The expo is expected to draw 10 million visitors, and over 40 foreign and 60 domestic cities to Xi’an.

Learning to Unlearn from Development: Ideology and Experience
2009-03-10 16:00 - 17:00

China, India, Brazil and South Africa: Engines of Growth in the World?
2009-03-02 18:00 - 20:00
Deepak Nayyar, Distinguished Univeristy Professor of Economics, The New School, will deliver a lecture on his research regarding China, India, Brazil and South Africa as engines of economic growth in the world, moderated by Professor Anwar Shaikh, Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research. This event is co-sponsored by India China Institute and the Department of Economics, The New School for Social Research. It is the first of a series of discussions with Professor Nayyar.
Professor Nayyar has taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, University of Oxford, The University of Sussex, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 200 to 2005. Recent Books include Governing Globalization: Issues and Institutions, and as co-author with Joseph Stiglitz and Jose Antonio Ocampo et al, Stability with Growth: Macroeconomics, Liberalization and Development.

Deepak Nayyar’s presentation

The Disinterested Government: An Interpretation of China’s Economic Success in the Reform Area
2009-02-17 18:00 - 20:00
A talk by Professor Yao Yang, China Center for Economic Research, Beijing University & ICI Fellow.

In the last 30 years, China has reached high economic growth and successfully transformed itself from a planning economy to a market economy. To a large extent, China has achieved its successes by adopting the recommendations proposed by the standard economic theory. However, a political economy question has been left out in the literature: Why has China adopted the right economic policies and a proper road to reform? This talk attempts to provide an answer to this question.

Discussion Moderated by: Jianying Zha, ICI Representative in China & author.

Dr. Yao obtained his B.S. in geography in 1986 and M.S. of Economics in 1989 both from Peking University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Development Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996. Dr. Yao has been following issues of land acquisition, ownership transformation, and migration in China for the past decade. Yao has taught economics at various institutions in China, Japan, and the United States. In addition, he has served as a consultant to the World Bank and participated in numerous contemporary debates about China’s economic reform. Yao writes widely in the popular and academic in China and is a respected authority on rural development

Student Fellows Presentations
2009-02-13 13:00 - 16:00

China’s Gradual Economic Reform in Light of Income & Wealth Distribution
2008-11-24
Presentation by Zhao Renwei Institute of Economics, CASS – part of ICI fellows’ China ResidencyView presentation

Reflections and Analysis of the Historic Constituent Assembly Election
2008-11-13 17:30 - 20:30
Reflections and Analysis of the Historic Constituent Assembly Election: A Discussion with Bhojraj Pokharel, Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal

This discussion will be followed by Q&A SessionLimited seating on a first come basis

In October 2006, Bhojraj Pokharel was appointed the Chief Election Commissioner of Nepal, and oversaw the historic Constituent Assembly (CA) Election on April 10th 2008 – the country’s first post-conflict election. His leadership in the successful planning and implementation of the CA election, against a backdrop of major political and logistical challenges, has been widely recognized by national and international institutions, including the Secretary General of the United Nations. Mr. Pokharel will share his experiences of the CA elections and discuss his views of the future of Nepal’s electoral process.

View Bhojraj Pokharel’s presentation

Film Screening: Still Life
2008-11-11 17:00 - 20:00
Grand Prize winner at the 2006 Venice Film Festival! In “Still Life” the blood and the sweat run directly into the Yangtze River, where they mingle with more than a few tears. The movie takes place amid the clatter and misery of the Three Gorges Dam, which cuts across the Yangtze in central China. The largest dam in the world, Three Gorges is a site of great cultural and political strife because of both environmental and humanitarian concerns. This may sound like a prescription for social cinema, but director Jia Zhang-ke’s interest lies in visual ideas and human behavior, not agendas.

Kristine Harris (PhD, Columbia University) is Associate Professor of Chinese History and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the State University of New York. In Spring 2007 she was Visiting Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. She has also taught at the New School for Social Research. Her research explores the social and political facets of film culture in China from the 1890’s to the present, with emphasis on the pre-1949 period. Her publications include The Metropolis in the Cinematic Imagination of Republican China and the City Symphony Film,” In Dushi wenhua zhong de xiandai zhongguo 都市文化中的现代中国 [Popular Culture of the Modern Metropolis] (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 2007) and “The Goddess: Fallen Woman of Shanghai,” in Chinese Films in Focus (BFI 2003, 2008). “

India's Water Relations with Her Neighbors
2008-11-03 17:30 - 19:30
A presentation by Professor Ramaswamy R. Iyer, India’s Centre for Policy Research with discussant Lopamudra Banerjee, Assistant Professor of Economics, The New School.

Limited seating on a first come basis.

The Himalayas feeds nine of the largest rivers in the region on which more than 1.5 billion people depend upon downstream. Over the years these water systems have also been one of the more sensitive political subjects in the region. Today there is a bidding war for controlling these water ways for various reasons including large hydro power plants and India is actively negotiating new as well as old treaties with its neighbors.

Professor Ramaswamy R. Iyer is currently a member of the High Level Expert Panel on Water and Disaster, an adjunct to the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation. He was formerly the Secretary of Water Resources in the Government of India. After his retirement from the Government, he was Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) , New Delhi, where he worked on water-related issues, and in particular on cooperation on river waters by India, Nepal and Bangladesh. He continues with CPR in an honorary capacity. Professor Iyer will discuss India’s inter-country water relations with Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. He will address both transboundary river water systems as well as looking beyond river waters, governments and big projects to outline other possibilities of cooperation between India and these countries.

Development & Empowerment Through the Arts
2008-10-21 18:00 - 20:00
A talk and discussion with Dr. Mallika Sarabhai. Dr. Sarabhai, educated as an economist and a business manager, is well known as a performer, writer, strategist, and as a social activist. For over 30 years Dr. Sarabhai has led Darpana, to becoming a leading workshop for the arts where the focus has been on excellence and the use of the arts for social change. Darpana for Development was founded in 1982 to concentrate on developing performance as a language for change. Raising public awareness of violence against women in every strata of society is an important facet of Mallika’s work. The Darpana 50 Showcase in Delhi is presented in collaboration with Sakshi, an NGO that works for women’s empowerment and, through intervention with schools, colleges, and people involved in health care, social work and public life, seeks to realize a ‘vision of equality and the basic right of women and children to a life free from violence.’ Mallika Sarabhai has performed in over 90 countries including the United States. She has acted in more than 30 films. She played the lead character of Draupadi in an international theater production of “The Mahabharata” by renowned director Peter Brook.

Sponsored by Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy, and Parsons The New School for Design. Co-Sponsored by the India China Institute at the New School.

Vertical Density | Sustainable Solutions
2008-10-16 - 2008-10-18
The Skyscraper Museum Presents:

An International Symposium:

In conjunction with its Vertical Cities: Hong Kong | New York exhibition, The Skyscraper Museum presents an international symposium that examines the dramatic vertical urbanism of Hong Kong and New York and asks: “Is density a strategy for sustainable cities?”

Three separate programs are held in partnership with The Regional Plan Association, The New School’s India China Institute and The Tishman Environment and Design Center and features Hong Kong and New York leaders from development, design and government.

Thursday, Oct. 16, 3-5:30pm: Learning from Hong Kong Using the Venturi and Scott-Brown model of Learning from Las Vegas, this program will examine Hong Kong’s extreme density and development model of transit and towers and asks: What can New York learn?

Friday, Oct. 17th, 2-5:30pm: Debating Density Developers love density: urban activists generally decry it. Government officials try to find a balance between revenues generated by private development and the high costs of infrastructure and public amenities. Does density pay? Or does it cost?

Saturday Oct. 18th, 2:30-5pm: Designing Density In Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas admired Manhattan’s “culture of congestion”. Hong Kong has had the most densely-inhabited districts in the world, first by lack of regulation, then by design. An afternoon of discussion among academics and architects examines concepts of density and extreme urbanism in theory and practice.

All events are FREE but space is limited, REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED: www.skyscraper.org/verticaldensity

Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the New Asian Age
2008-10-15 17:00 - 19:00
Reconsidering The Wealth of Nations: China and the future of capitalism – Presentation by Giovanni Arrighi, Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University

Discussant: Duncan Foley, Leo Model Professor of Economics, The New School for Social Research

Chair and Moderator: Arjun Appadurai, John Dewey Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences, The New School for Social Research

Giovanni Arrighi’s main interests are in the fields of long-term, large-scale social change and of inequality within and between nations. The publication of Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-first Century (2007) completes the investigation of the origins and transformations of the world capitalist system that he initiated with The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (1994) and continued with Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (1999) co-authored with Beverly J. Silver. Dr. Arrighi has taught in Africa, Europe, and North America. His work has been published in more than fifteen languages. His current research focuses on regional differentiation within the global South with special reference to the contrasting developmental trajectories of Southern Africa and East Asia.

Prospects and Challenges of Identity Politics in the New Nepal
2008-09-30 18:00 - 20:00
A conversation with Nepal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, Upendra Yadav

Comments by: Prof. Sanjay Ruparelia, The New School and Kul Chandra Gautam, Senior Fellow, India China Institute

Refreshments will be served

Co-sponsored by: Association of Nepali Teraian in America Alliance for Democracy & Human Rights in Nepal Federation of Indigenous Peoples of Nepal in America Nepal American Society of Oppressed Community Nepalese Democratic Youth Council, USA United Nepalese Democratic Forum.

A Maoist Vision for a New Nepal
2008-09-26 18:00 - 20:00
Remarks by Andrew Arato, Dorothy Hart Hirshon Professor of Political & Social Theory, The New School; Q&A session moderated by Kul Gautam, Senior Fellow, India China Institute.

A public talk by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda (‘The Fierce One’), the first democratically elected Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal, the World’s Youngest Democratic Republic! Nepal’s Prime Minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda (‘The Fierce One’), came to power in August 2008 following his party’s success in the country’s first-ever Constituent Assembly elections. Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and leader of its People’s Liberation Army, he led a decade-long People’s War (1996- 2006) with the goals of ending Nepal’s monarchy and creating a new federal republic. This year, Constituent Assembly elections held in April yielded a near majority for the Maoists. The Assembly’s first meeting ended a 240-year-old monarchy and began its main task: creating Nepal’s new constitution. In addition to leading the Assembly in this historic monumental task, Prachanda now faces the challenges of managing a complex coalition government to address the long-neglected basic needs of the people, while at the same time establishing security and peace in Nepal under the watchful gaze of an interested but skeptical international community.

Admission is free and open to the public. Limited seating on a first come basis, seating must be completed by 5:45PM

Co-sponsored by: Alliance for Democracy and Human Rights in Nepal American Nepal Friendship Society Association of Nepali Tarain in America Federation of Indigenous Peoples of Nepal in America United Nepalese Democratic Forum Adhikaar Nepalese Americas Council Friends of Nepal- New Jersey In Conversation (a podcast on www.Samudaya.org)

SUPER, GIRLS!
2008-09-19 05:30 - 20:00
SUPER, GIRLS!With a presentation and Q&A session with Director and India China Institute Fellow Jian Yi, and moderated by Jianying Zha, Writer and ICI Representative in China. Instant fame or eternal obscurity? Launched in 2005, the “Super Girl Singing Contest” TV show has spawned what has arguably become the single most important Chinese pop culture phenomena of this decade so far. “Super, Girls!” is the only feature-length documentary made so far on this show. The show, being “too popular”, is banned by broadcast media authorities in Beijing from 2007 onward.

Vision For a New Nepal: A Maoist Perspective
2008-04-28 18:30 - 20:30
Vision for a New Nepal: A Maoist PerspectiveA dialogue with Dev Prasad Gurung, Hon. Minister of Local Development & Senior Member of Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Background: The first-ever Constituent Election in Nepal, held on April 10th 2008, produced stunningly different results than most experts predicted. By awarding 120 out of 240 elected seats to the Maoists, the people of Nepal have expressed strong confidence in the Communist Party‰Ûªs leadership. Without a doubt, there will be a fundamental shift in the creation of a new Nepal. While 335 seats under the Proportional Representation system have yet to be tallied, the Maoists will likely lead the new government. Falling short of the simple majority in the Constituent Assembly, they must work with other political parties to form the future government and rewrite the Constitution. There are many critical issues yet to be addressed: What is the vision for a new Nepal? What type of Federalism will the Maoists help bring about? How will the aspirations of marginalized communities for inclusive democracy become a reality?

The Honorable Mr. Dev Prasad Gurung is Minister for Local Development. A member of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), he won two constituencies during the election for Constituent Assembly held on April 10, 2008. Mr. Gurung was born in 1958 in the Manang District in Nepal. He received a certificate of Civil Engineering, a B.Ed, and a M.A. in political science from Tribhuvan University. In 1978, he joined the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) and participated in student movement against Panchayat system. He was elected as a member of Party Central Committee CPN (Unity Centre) in 1992 and to the politburo in 1995. In 1997, he was arrested in Gorkha and was released from prison in 2000. Two years later, he was elected as Central Committee Secretary of United Revolutionary People’s Council. In 2002, he became a member of party negotiation team with the government. In 2005, he became a member of the 7th Party Congress Central Organizing Committee and Central Secretariat. He is Co-chair of the Nepal Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities.

Nepal's Forest: Retrospects and Prospects
2008-04-26 16:00 - 18:00

China's Aid to Africa: Implications and International Perspectives
2008-04-25 16:00 - 19:00
After decades of deficient Western policies to develop Africa, China’s increasingly bold, no-strings approach to investment and aid in Africa attracts both cautious praise and withering criticism. Can China’s aid to Africa be seen as an incipient new developmental model, a catalyst for prosperity, a deleterious neo-colonialist gambit, or elements of all three? Will the flow of Chinese money to Africa undermine arduous efforts at accountability and effective aid by Western institutions, or can it induce innovation among traditional donors whose own track records are open to much criticism? How should scholars, policy-makers, and aid organizations make sense of the impact of China’s inroads into commerce, extractive industries, construction, flows of manufactured goods, capital and even labor? How do Africans and Chinese view the current efforts of their respective governments, private sectors, and civil societies to engage each other? What are the implications for bilateral and multilateral relations, governance and the environment?

The India China Institute, in conjunction with The New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) presents a public panel discussion on China’s Aid to Africa with leading scholars, government officials, and practitioners from China, Africa, the US and Europe. The panel will explore, inter alia, the history, implementation and implications of China’s aid policies towards Africa; the way China’s experience as an aid recipient influences its policies abroad; the impact of China’s aid on African socio-economic development and governance; and how existing donors can respond and engage this new phenomenon. Case studies from Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola will inform the discussion, and an African government official and international NGO professional will share their experience working with Chinese players in negotiating aid terms and advocating for better environmental and governance standards.Speakers include:

Deborah Brautigam, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University;Sun Baohong, Counselor, Policy Analysis Section, Chinese Embassy, Washington DC;Mukenge Betu-Kabansu, Secretary of the Vice President of the Democratic Republic of Congo;Zhang Jun, Researcher, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing;Peter Bosshard, Policy Director, International Rivers;Daniel Large, Research Director of the Africa Asia Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London;Tang Xiaoyang, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, The New School.

Moderated by Jonathan Bach, Associate Director, Graduate Program in International Affairs.This event was made possible by the generous support of the NASDAQ Foundation as part of a series of events on “Global China” co-sponsored by the India China Institute at the New School.

Prosperity and Inequality Conference
2008-03-27
The centerpiece of the 2008 New York residency “Prosperity and Inequality: Debates in India and China,” marked the beginning of two years of trilateral conversations among the 2008-10 ICI Fellows. The conference juxtaposed issues in India and China such as urbanization and wealth-formation; the management of risks associated with rapid growth in agrarian societies; the implementation of alternative designs for future development; and how to combine the virtues of socialism and capitalism without sacrificing the virtues of democracy and grassroots activism. The keynote address, delivered by Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, addressed the basis for economic growth in China and India; their relationship to the U.S. economy; as well as constraints on growth and the effect of the economic slow-down. Dervis is an expert in development economics and has held various positions at the World Bank as well as served as the Minister for Economic Affairs in his native Turkey. He serves as chair of the UN Development Group, a committee comprised of the heads of all UN funds, programs, and departments related to development.

View Presentations

India and China: Changing Giants in the World System
2008-02-13 18:00 - 21:00
Disussion with Sanjay Reddy and Jeffrey Wasserstrom – The New School – February 13, 2008. Sanjay Reddy discussed the global implications of India’s changing international economic position. Jeffrey Wasserstrom focused on a cultural analysis of the current situation in China, at a time when the forces of economic and cultural globalization have been transforming patterns of urban life in myriad ways.

Participant bios:

Sanjay Reddy is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. He also teaches in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He earned a PhD in Economics and an AB in Applied Mathematics with Physics from Harvard, and an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. He received fellowships from (among others) Harvard University and Princeton University. His areas of research include development economics, international economics, and economics and philosophy. He has researched for development agencies and international institutions, including the G-24 group of developing countries, Oxfam, UNICEF, UNDP, and World Bank. He has published widely, and is a member of the editorial advisory boards of Development, Ethics and International Affairs, and the European Journal of Development Research. Dr. Reddy’s published articles includeGlobalisation, Labour Markets, and Social Outcomes in Developing Countreis (2006); International Trade: What Does Justice Demand? (2006) and Promoting Poorer Countries’ Interests (2006). He most recently wrote International Debt: The Constructice Implications of Some Moral Mathematics(2007).

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. He received a Master’s in East Asian Studies from Harvard and his doctorate in History from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a specialist in modern Chinese history. He publishes widely in academic venues and also contributed reviews and commentaries to general interest periodicals, such as Newsweek, The Nation, The TLS, The New Left Review, andLos Angeles Times. He has edited, co-edited, or co-authored five books including Human Rights and Revolutions (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000 and 2007 editions). He is currently completing work on Global Shanghai, 1850-2010, which will appear in Routledge’s series on Asia’s World Cities. Dr. Wasserstrom is the author of Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford Univ. Press, 1991), and, most recently, China’s Brave New World–And Other Tales for Global TImes (Indiana Univ. Press, 2007). In this book a scholar poses such questions as what it really means to order a latte at Starbucks in Beijing as he journeys from nine-teenth century China into the future in this examination of China’s place in the current world order, and from Shanghai to Chicago, St. Louis, Budapest, and beyond.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
2008-01-29 18:00 - 20:00
Co-sponsored with Schwartz Center for Economic Policy and Analysis, Economics Department, and Graduate Program for International Affairs.

Over the last two and half decades, most developing countries have experienced slowdown in growth, rising inequality, and increased economic instability. The outcome is, Ha-Joon Chang contends, due to the policies imposed upon them by the rich countries and the international organisations that they control free trade, free international investment, privatisation, stronger protection of intellectual property rights, and conservative macroeconomic policies. Chang argues that there are good theoretical reasons that those policies produce such outcome. He backs this contention by showing that neo-liberal policies that the “Bad Samaritan” rich countries have been promoting are actually not the policies that they themselves used when they were developing countries themselves nor are they policies used by more recent development success stories, from 1960s Korea and Taiwan down to China and India since the 1980s. Featuring Alexander Hamilton, the Lexus, Nokia mobile phone, his son, Orson Welles, and an elephant (if he has time), Chang’s talk argues for a fundamental reform of the international economic system and for national policies focused on raising long-term productivity (mostly) in manufacturing.

Ha-Joon Chang, a Korean national, has taught at the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, since 1990. In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, Ha-Joon Chang has published nine authored books (three of them co-authored) and eight edited books (six of them co-edited). His most recent books include Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (Anthem Press, 2002), Globalization, Economic Development and The Role of the State (Zed Press, 2003), and Reclaiming Development: An Alternative Economic Policy Manual (with Ilene Grabel; Zed Press, 2004), and Bad Samaritans: Rich Nations, Poor Policies, and the Threat to the Developing World(Random House, 2007). His writings have been translated into 15 languages. Apart from his academic activities, Ha-Joon Chang has worked as a consultant for numerous international organisations, including various UN agencies (UNCTAD, WIDER, UNDP, UNIDO, UNRISD, INTECH, FAO, and ILO), the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. He has also worked as a consultant for a number of governments (the UK, Canada, Japan, South Africa, and Venezuela). Ha-Joon Chang is the winner of the 2003 Myrdal Prize, awarded to his book, Kicking Away the Ladder, by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy (EAEPE). He is also the winner (jointly with Richard Nelson of Columbia University) of the 2005 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought awarded by Tufts University.

William Milberg is Associate Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research and Program Coordinator for the Schwartz Center for Economic and Policy Analysis. His research focuses on the implications of changes in international trade and investment flows for employment and income distribution. He has worked as a consultant to the UNDP, UNCTAD, and ILO. He is the co-author (with Robert Heilbroner) of The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought and The Making of Economic Society. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University in 1987.

Outsourcing as a Way of Life: Lessons from Shanghai
2007-12-11 18:00 - 20:00
Most Americans today are aware that jobs are being outsourced to China, India, and othernations at an alarming rate. From factory jobs to white-collar, high-tech positions, the exporting of labor is one of the most controversial issues in America. Yet few people know much about the other end – about the people who are actually working these jobs and how their own lives have been thrown into tumult by these new economic forces.

Andrew Ross, professor of American Studies and chair of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, spent a year in China, interviewing local employees and their managers in Taiwan, Shanghai, and the far western provinces. His talk draws from his engaging and informative book, Fast Boat to China, in which he shows how the Chinese workforce has inherited many of the same worries as American workers, such as job instability, long hours, and awareness of their own expendability. He also reports on the daily reality of corporate free trade and explores the growing competition between China and India.

The discussion will be moderated by Rachel Heiman, assistant professor of anthropology in the Bachelor’s Program and Department of Social Sciences at the New School for General Studies. This event is cosponsored by the Department of Social Sciences, India China Institute, and the Graduate Program in International Affairs.

What Led to China's Economic Growth?
2007-12-06 18:15 - 20:15
Discussion by Zhiwu Chen, Professor of Management, Yale School of Management, explores the determinants of China’s economic growth with Keith Abell and Salieh Neftci as discussants.

In the last 15 years China’s economy has been catapulting forward at a tremendous rate. Much is said about where it is going, but what are the root causes behind this growth? Why the recent “reform and open door policy” succeeded while those in the Qing and republican years did not? Why institutions matter despite China’s growth experience in the past 30 years? What “capitalization and financialization” lessons to learn from China’s experience?

Zhiwu Chen is an expert on finance theory, securities valuation, emerging markets, and China’s economy and capital markets. Dr. Chen is a frequent contributor to top economics and finance journals with research papers ranging from novel means of valuing stocks and pricing options, to studies of foreign exchange, market integration, mutual funds and profitable investment strategies. In the last few years, Dr. Chen has been actively doing research on market development and institution-building issues in the context of China’s transition process and other emerging markets. What institutions are necessary for markets to develop? What roles do financial innovations play in a country’s economic development process? These are among the issues which Dr. Chen’s research focuses on. Dr. Chen’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Barron’s, Far-Eastern Economic Review, and many newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and China. He is also a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines in China, on economic policy and legal reform issues.

Moderated by Benjamin Lee, Provost.

Co-sponsored with Graduate Program for International Affairs.

Gauging Public Opinion: Polling and Social Work in China
2007-10-30 17:00 - 19:00
A presentation by Victor Yuan, moderated by Jaheo Kang.

With the re-emergence of China as a world power one of the challenges for both the Public and Private sector is gauging public opinion. What role can polling and social work play in establishing the political and commercial needs of the rapidly growing Chinese consumers? What have been the results thus far?

Dr. Victor Yuan is the chairman of Horizon Corp., an India China Institute honorary fellow, a Global fellow at Yale University, and a host of the Dragon TV-CBN talk show “Brainstorm”. He is considered one of China’s most highly regarded young leaders and is at the forefront of information gathering services.

Horizon Consultancy Group is one of the leading strategic research and consultancy firms in China. The group was one of the first companies certified by the State Statistic Bureau eligible for engaging international research projects in China.

Calm Before the Storm? Perspectives on Continuing Crisis Burma/Myanmar
2007-10-26 14:00 - 16:00
A panel discussion with Sanjay Reddy, Khin Zaw Win, Anshin Nayake, Sara Davis. Co-sponsored with Graduate Program for International Affairs and TCDS.

Khin Zaw Win: Burmese Independent Researcher and Activist. A trained dentist and former prison of conscious (1994-2005) for his “seditious writings” and human rights work, Mr. Khin Zaw Win has been working independently in the past two years as a development practitioner and policy writer and researcher. He advocates incremental reform and broader international economic and political engagement with Burma, instead of abrupt regime change, isolation and sanction, which differs him from the mainstream opposition movement. After witnessing first hand of the Saffron Revolution in Burma, he arrived in New York in October as a Visiting Fellow of Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Sanjay Reddy: Assistant Professor of Economics at Barnard, Columbia University. Dr. Reddy also teaches in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where he teaches courses on world poverty and on development economics. His areas of work include development economics, international economics and economics and philosophy.

Ashin Nayaka: Burmese Buddhist monk. Dr. Nayaka is founding director of the Buddhist Missionary Society, New York and currently a visiting scholar at Department of History, Columbia University.

Sara (Meg) Davis: Executive Director, Asia Catalyst. Sara Davis (“Meg”) is a writer and human rights advocate. Her book, Song and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China’s Southwest Borders (Columbia University Press, 2005), based on her doctoral dissertation, draws on research in Yunnan, China and Shan State, Burma into cross-border ethnic cultural and religious revival.

Tim Pachirat: Assistant Professor of Political Science and International AffairsTimothy Pachirat (Ph.D. 2008, Yale University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics and the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School. His research and teaching interests include comparative politics, the politics of Southeast Asia, spatial and visual politics, the sociology of domination and resistance, the political economy of dirty and dangerous work, and interpretive and ethnographic research methods. Pachirat’s work has received awards from the American Political Science Association’s Section on Qualitative Methods and from the American Political Science Association’s Labor Project. He is currently working on a book project that draws on an ethnography of immigrant labor on the kill floor of an industrialized slaughterhouse to explore how violence that is seen as both essential and repugnant to modern society is organized, disciplined, and regulated.

Nepal's Fragile Peace Process
2007-10-08 18:00 - 20:00
An event co-sponsored with International Crisis Group.

Rhoderick Chalmers, South Asia Deputy Project Director for The International Crisis Group, discussed the state of Nepal’s peace process; what is behind political parties’ heightened tensions that threaten to disrupt the upcoming elections for Nepal’s Constituent Assembly; and actions the government, its constituent participants, and the international community can take to support the peace process

Rhoderick Chalmers, Deputy South Asia Project Director, International Crisis Group: Rhoderick Chalmers is primarily responsible for Crisis Group’s reporting on Nepal’s Maoist insurgency. As well as examining the roots of the conflict and means of containing and resolving it, he coordinates research on specific areas including political parties and constitutional reform, cross-border security issues, ethnic movements and Maoist politics. Advocacy work involves continuous interaction with diplomatic missions in Kathmandu and maintaining close contact with government, academia, the media and policy think tanks both in Nepal and India, as well as briefing foreign ministries, UN agencies and international NGOs in Europe and the U.S.

Urban Futures: People and Planning in India and China Conference
2007-06-16
Following the two-weeks of the Fellows’ residency in China, the ICI hosted an international conference in partnership with the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. The conference began with opening remarks by Benjamin Lee, Provost of The New School, and Pan Gongkai, President of CAFA, both emphasized the need for academia to respond to the challenges of urbanization by focusing on research and to take collaborations seriously. Following their remarks, Nirupama Rao, the Indian Ambassador to China, spoke on the need for inclusive growth in both India and China. The keynote address, delivered by Chen Gang, Deputy Mayor of Beijing, focused on Beijing’s urbanization pressures. Chen described cities as centers of spiritual and material wealth and culture. In order to make Beijing a liveable international metropolis, the government plans to cap the city’s population at 18 million, organize the city by district centers, create green belts, improve mass transit and services for migrants, and promote sustainable agriculture. After the address, three panels of experts from India, China, and the United States spoke on different aspects of urban futures.

The first session, Speculation and Preservation, moderated by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, Chair of the Center of Policy Research in India, addressed planning and management of cities’ growth. Panelists included two developers, Feng Lun, Chair of Vantone Group, and Zhang Guilin, Chair of Zhuzong Group; Wen Zhongyong, Deputy Chief Planner of Beijing and ICI fellow; and Michael Cohen, Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs and former World Bank official. Panelists analyzed political forces, market forces, and public participation as major factors that decide the future of cities. In China, city planning, formerly a technical area, has become a matter of public policy; designers have been transformed from technical officials to social workers; and government has moved from public management to service provision.

In the second session, Aspiration and Agency, moderated by S. Parasuraman, Professor and Director of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, panelists addressed planning for the unexpected and people’s participation. Hua Xinmin, preservation scholar and activist, discussed the evolution of property rights and implications for planning and social development with a historical perspective on land reform since the 1950s. ICI fellow Yao Yang, Professor and Director of the China Center for Economic Research, Peking University, discussed property rights as a countervailing force to social engineering created by concerned stakeholders, and the way popular protest and resistance, as well as challenges from scholars, are changing government’s mindset. Arjun Appadurai, ICI endowed Professor at The New School, stated that whereas in the past cities demanded housing, now housing demands cities. The housing industry is increasingly driving both finance and human labor, requiring infinite production of poor people.

The third session, Technology and Innovation, moderated by Colleen Macklin, Professor at Parsons School of Design at The New School, addressed ways to account for technology and innovation in planning for the future of cities. Panelists included two architects, Frank Fu, Professor at CAFA, and Margarita Gutman, faculty member at The New School; ICI fellow Wu Xiaobo, Vice Dean of the School of Management, Zhejiang University; and ICI fellow Aromar Revi, founder and President of TARU in India. Wu discussed the use of digital management systems in Hangzhou and the challenges of integrating the soft power of human behavior with technology. Revi outlined four necessary urban transformations: social transformation, which addresses caste, gender, and minority inclusion and empowerment; economic transformation, which makes markets work for poor people; RUrban transformation, which maintains ecosystem services to balance the rural and the urban; and institutional transformation, which requires a functioning and responsive decentralized governmental framework, the building of a cadre of urban change management professionals, and the integration of risk mitigation into the urban economy, planning, and design.
