China Chats with Stanford Faculty

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USA vs China:  A New Cold War? Great Power Relations and Competition in the 21st Century

Thirty years ago, the Cold War ended. Today, great power competition is back – or so it seems – with many describing our present era as a “New Cold War” between the United States and China (and Russia). But is this label an illuminating or distorting analogy? More importantly, what should the U.S. do to meet the challengers of great power competition in the 21st century? 

In analyzing contemporary relations, we must trace the historical origins of the U.S.-China relationship, then assess the similarities and differences between the Cold War and U.S.-China relations today along dimensions such as power, ideology, and multilateralism, in order to effectively devise unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral policy prescriptions for U.S. policymakers.

This Stanford alumni event featured Stanford professor Michael McFaul, director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He was joined by professor Hongbin Li, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy, who moderated a discussion about the major themes of the research. 

Watch the event recording:

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About the Speakers:

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.

Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development. Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

 

Hongbin Li is the Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He also founded and served as the Executive Associate Director of the China Social and Economic Data Center at Tsinghua University. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world . He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

 

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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Corrupt countries are usually poor, yet China is an exception. President Xi Jinping acknowledges that corruption in the country has reached crisis proportions. If this is true, why has China nevertheless sustained 40 years of economic growth and deep transformation?

In this talk, Professor Yuen Yuen Ang will analyze how different types of corruption exert different effects on the economy.  Reminiscent of America’s Gilded Age during the 19th century, reform-era China has steadily evolved toward a particular type of corruption: access money (elite exchanges of power and wealth).  Starting in the 2000s, the central government effectively curbed directly growth-damaging types of corruption such as embezzlement and bureaucratic extortion. But access money fueled commerce by rewarding politicians for aggressively promoting growth and connected capitalists for taking on increasingly risky ventures. Such corruption has also produced systemic risks, distortions, and inequality, however—problems that define China's Gilded Age under Xi Jinping’s leadership. As a result, China today is a high-growth but risky and imbalanced economy. 

Despite popular perceptions that China and the United States are two polar opposites, therefore, contemporary China and 19th century America share some striking commonalities.

Yuen Yuen Ang is a PhD graduate of Stanford University, where she studied comparative political economy with a focus on China. She is the inaugural recipient of the Theda Skocpol Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association for “impactful empirical, theoretical and/or methodological contributions to the study of comparative politics.” She was also named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for “high-caliber scholarship that applies fresh perspectives to the most pressing issues of our times.” Her first, award-winning book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), is acclaimed as “game changing” and “field shifting.” It received the Peter Katzenstein Prize in Political Economy, the Viviana Zelizer Prize in Economic Sociology, and was named “Best of Books 2017″ by Foreign Affairs. The sequel to this book, China’s Gilded Age: the Paradox of Economic Boom & Vast Corruption, is released in 2020. It was featured in The Diplomat, The Economist, and The Wire China. She is an associate professor in political science at the University of Michigan and previously a faculty member at Columbia University SIPA.

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This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

China Chats with Stanford Faculty

The Rise of Robots in China with Professor Hongbin Li

China’s production and adoption of robotic technology have accelerated rapidly in recent years, surpassing Japan, US, and Germany. Stanford professor Hongbin Li and a team of scholars draw on multi-year field research data to show fresh insights into China’s aggressive push into automation—specifically, the increasing use of robots—to maintain its status as the “world’s factory.” His analysis offers an unprecedented look at what’s happening at the factory level, and fresh insight into how rising labor costs, an aging population and government policies are reshaping Chinese manufacturing.

In this Stanford alumni event, Hongbin Li, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, was joined by Scott Rozelle, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, who moderated a discussion about the major themes of the research. 

Watch the event recording:

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About the Speakers:

Hongbin Li is the Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He also founded and served as the Executive Associate Director of the China Social and Economic Data Center at Tsinghua University. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world . He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

 

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the China Center for Agricultural Policy in Peking University. In recent years Rozelle spends most of his time co-directing the Rural Education Action Project (REAP). In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premier Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

How can the U.S. best manage its relationship with China? The country is at once a major and increasingly hostile competitor to the U.S., a formidable challenger to U.S.’ regional and global leadership, and an important partner on a range of transnational challenges. Will it be possible for both sides to coexist amidst intensifying competition? How great is the risk of US-China conflict, including over Taiwan? Ryan Hass, author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, will address these questions and more in opening comments before engaging in an open Q&A on the future of the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship.

Ryan Hass is a senior fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also the Interim Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies. Hass focuses his research and analysis on enhancing policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the United States in East Asia. He is the author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, published by Yale University Press.

From 2013 to 2017, Hass served as the director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the National Security Council (NSC) staff. In that role, he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of U.S. policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and coordinated the implementation of U.S. policy toward this region among U.S. government departments and agencies. He joined President Obama’s state visit delegations in Beijing and Washington respectively in 2014 and 2015, and the president’s delegation to Hangzhou, China, for the G-20 in 2016, and to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings in 2016. Prior to joining NSC, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer in U.S. Embassy Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s award for impact and originality in reporting. Hass also served in Embassy Seoul and Embassy Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs. 

 

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This event is part of the 2021 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, Biden’s America, Xi’s China: What’s Now & What’s Next?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.