For the last decade, China has been at the forefront of pushing for regional economic integration, e.g. ASEAN-China FTA, Hong Kong-China CEPA, and China-Taiwan ECFA. Could this process culminate into a movement toward a European Union-style economic bloc? What are the implications of this development for US economic welfare? US unions have long viewed the cheap goods from China as harmful to US workers; and some US economists have recently blamed the cheap credit from China for the 2008 implosion of the US financial system. The present escalation of Chinese and US rhetoric on the exchange rate is worryingly akin to the mutual pawing on the ground before the great leap forward at each other. What is the sensible solution? There is no sign that the impasse over the Doha Round of trade negotiations would be resolved in the medium-term.  It is very surprising that China has adopted a near hands-off approach on this issue because it has been the biggest beneficiary of the open multilateral trading system. Has China's failure to help strengthen the WTO framework emboldened protectionism, much to its own detriment and the world's? In this seminar, Professor Woo will examine China's strategy of external economic engagement, including the recently signed ECFA between Beijing and Taipei. Woo argues that part (and only part) of the reason why China does not already have a coherent strategy could be that its present governance institutions create disincentives to move quickly to embrace such a strategy.  

Wing Thye Woo is Professor of Economics at U.C. Davis, Yangtze River Scholar at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, Director of the East Asia Program within The Earth Institute at Columbia University, and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He received an M.A. in Economics from Yale University, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. He has advised the U.S. Treasury Department, the IMF, World Bank, and the United Nations. Professor Woo has published extensively, and his current research focuses on the economic issues of East Asia, international financial architecture, comparative economic growth, state enterprise restructuring, fiscal management, and exchange rate economics.

The Stanford China Program, in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies, will host a special series of seminars to examine China as a major political and economic actor on the world stage. Over the course of the autumn and winter terms, leading scholars will examine China actions and policies in the new global political economy. What is China's role in global governance? What is the state of China's relations with its Asian neighbors? Is China being more assertive both diplomatically as well as militarily? Are economic interests shaping its foreign policies? What role does China play amidst international conflicts?

Yves Tiberghien is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UBC (currently on leave and a Visiting Associate Professor at National Chengchi University in Taiwan). He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University in 2004-2006. He specializes in comparative political economy and international political economy with empirical focus on China, Japan, and Europe. In 2007, he published "Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea" with Cornell University Press in the Political Economy Series. His publications include articles and book chapters on the comparative political economy of East Asia (Japan, Korea) and on climate change politics (Japan and EU). Over the last four years, he has been working on a large project and book on the global governance of genetically engineered food (GMOs). He has a strong interest in environmental and food governance (GMOs, climate change, food politics) in China. He is currently working on a new multi-year project on the role of China in global governance (with focus on global financial regulations, G20, and global environmental issues) funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), as well as a project on the political consequences of economic inequality in Japan.

This event is part of the China and the World series.

This is part of the Stanford seminar series on Science, Technology, and Society.

Abstract
How do transformative new technologies arise, and how does innovation really work? Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to “thinking outside the box,” or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces  themselves technologies  that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries, and combine, morph, and combine again, to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms  it creates itself from itself; and all technologies are descended from earlier technologies.

W. Brian Arthur is an External Faculty Member at the Santa Fe Institute, IBM Faculty Fellow, and Visiting Researcher in the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC (formerly Xerox Parc). From 1983 to 1996 he was Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. from Berkeley in Operations Research, and has other degrees in economics, engineering and mathematics.

Arthur pioneered the modern study of positive feedbacks or increasing returns in the economy--in particular their role in magnifying small, random events in the economy. This work has gone on to become the basis of our understanding of the high-tech economy. He has recently published a new book: The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves, "an elegant and powerful theory of technology's origins and evolution."He is also one of the pioneers of the science of complexity.

Arthur was the first director of the Economics Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, and has served on SFI's Science Board and Board of Trustees. He is the recipient of the Schumpeter Prize in economics, the Lagrange Prize in complexity science, and two honorary doctorates.

Arthur is a frequent keynote speaker on such topics as: How exactly does innovation work and how can it be fostered? What is happening in the economy, and how should we rethink economics? How is the digital revolution playing out in the economy? How will US and European national competitiveness fare, given the rise of China and India?

Lynn Eden is Associate Director for Research at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Co-sponsored by STS, CISAC, and WTO.

Arthur's new book, The Nature of Technology, will be available for purchase.

Please bring lunch; drinks and light refreshments will be provided.

Since the inception of reform and opening-up thirty years ago, China has established a record of astonishing economic achievements and is, or will soon be, surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy, something few people would have imagined three decades ago.

The information and communications technologies (ICT) industry is the backbone of the Chinese export driven growth strategy, which many argue as the primary driver of China's economic growth. Recent ICT policy initiatives demonstrate China's shifting strategy in pursuing a different path for the next phase of economic growth.

Promoting indigenous innovation and strengthening information security may be considered the two major thrusts of Chinese ICT policy initiatives. Technical standards, IPR treatments, government procurement, and special industry incentives are some examples of the former domain; internet filtering, compulsory certification of information security product, and encryption control are examples of the latter.

Many of these initiatives are controversial in the international trade arena. However, the real challenges of these policy initiatives concern whether they work to achieve the Chinese government's goal of maintaining sustainable growth. This presentation will attempt to evaluate these challenges.

Dr. John C. Chiang was appointed as Director of Global Innovation Research Center at Peking University in June 2008. He joined PKU in February 2006 as Professor in the Department of Management of Technology at the School of Software and Microelectronics. Dr. Chiang is also President of USITO, the organization representing five major US IT industry trade associations and close to 50 individual U.S. IT companies in China, a role he has held since October 2008.

Dr. Chiang came to China in 2000, joining Motorola China as Deputy GM of the infrastructure business unit, spearheading its post-WTO strategy. He then moved to Motorola China HQ, serving as Senior Director of Strategy and Business Development. In 2003, he served as Director of Motorola China R&D Institute, and in 2004, he became the founding president of Motorola (China) Technologies, Limited.

From October 2006 to September 2008, Dr. Chiang was a Partner in DragonBridge Capital, a U.S.-based merchant bank with China as its primary serving market.

Dr. Chiang was born in Beijing, raised in Taiwan, and received the Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1975. He received the EMBA from Georgia State University in 1989.

After his academic career, Dr. Chiang joined Bell Laboratories in 1979, and later held progressive technical and managerial positions at Racal-Milgo, Hayes, and GTE. He was Senior Vice President of Operations at KG Telecom and led the launch of the first private mobile services in Taiwan, during 1997-2000.

Dr. Chiang currently also serves as the Vice Chair of the China Association of Standards and as an Investment Advisor to the Beijing Municipal Government.

Boris Begovic is president at the Center for Liberal-Democratic studies (CLDS) and professor of economics at the School of Law, University of Belgrade. He received his education at the University in Belgrade, London School of Economic and JFK School of Government, Harvard University. His field of expertise includes industrial organization, economic analysis of law, economic growth, economics of competition policy, and urban economics. Begovic was a chief economic adviser of the Federal Government of Yugoslavia (Serbia & Montenegro) 2000-2002, mainly involved in negotiations with IFIs, WTO accession and foreign trade liberalization, price liberalization and foreign debt rescheduling. Recent publications include: Corruption: An Economic Analysis (2007), Greenfield FDIs in Serbia (2008), Economics for Lawyers (2008) and From Poverty to Prosperity: Free Market Based Solutions (2008).

As democracy is based on one person - one vote rule and freedom of expression and it can bring a strong political pressure for compulsory redistribution, contrary to authoritarian political environment. Is there a systematic difference in redistributive and other economic policies between democracies and other countries? What are the effects of incentives created by democratic political decisions to the most productive segments to the society and economic growth they create? To what extent compulsory redistribution is violating protection of property rights and undermining sustainable economic growth? Do we have a consistent theory that can explain these relations? Is there any consistent empirical evidence? Are the consequences of democracy to the economic growth the same if the country came from the left wing or right wing authoritarian societies. These issues will be reviewed on the seminar.