Erin Baggot Carter and Brett Carter describe how Beijing’s repression reaches all the way to American classrooms.
Join us for a compelling discussion on the evolving challenges and strategies shaping China’s economy and its impact on global industrial policy. During this panel discussion, Skyline Scholars Loren Brandt from the University of Toronto and Xiaonian Xu from the China Europe International Business School, as well as Senior Fellow Mary Lovely from the Peterson Institute for International Economics will explore the slowdown of China’s economy and the structural reforms needed to address its debt and growth challenges. Scott Rozelle, Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, will moderate the discussion. Panelists will examine the shifting role of industrial policy in China, its strategic and economic motivations, and its broader effects on China’s long-term trajectory, as well as how China’s policies influence U.S. policy decisions, including the role of industrial policy in an era of increasing global competition.
The discussion will begin with opening remarks at 3:15 pm on Wednesday, February 26th. We invite you to join us before the event for light refreshments.
This event is off the record.
Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he completed Policy, Regulation, and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries (Cambridge University Press, 2019), an interdisciplinary effort analyzing the effect of government policy on the power and telecom sectors in China. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume Encyclopedia of Economic History (2003). His current research focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics, industrial policy and innovation and economic growth and structural change.
Mary E. Lovely is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute. She served as the 2022 Carnegie Chair in US-China Relations with the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. Lovely is professor emeritus of economics at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she was Melvin A. Eggers Economics Faculty Scholar from 2010 to April 2022. She was coeditor of the China Economic Review during 2011–15.
Her current research projects investigate the effect of China's foreign direct investment policies on trade flows and entry mode, strategic reform of US tariffs on China, and recent movements in global supply chains. Lovely earned her PhD in economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a master's degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University.
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. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.
In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.
Dr. Xiaonian Xu is Professor Emeritus at CEIBS, where he held the position of Professor of Economics and Finance from 2004 to 2018. In recognition of his contributions, he was named an Honorary Professor in Economics from September 2018 to August 2023.
Dr. Xu earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis, in 1991, and an MA in Industrial Economics from the People's University of China in 1981. In 1996, he was awarded the distinguished Sun Yefang Economics Prize, the highest honor in the field in China, for his research on China’s capital markets. His research interests include Macroeconomics, Financial Institutions and Financial Markets, Transitional Economies, China’s Economic Reform, Corporate Strategy and Digital Transformation. His publications include: Freedom and Market Economy, There has Never been A Savior, China: Market Economy or Planned Economy, the Nature of the Business and the Internet, and the Nature of the Business and the Internet, 2nd Edition.
A dedicated educator, he has been recognized with the CEIBS Teaching Excellence Award in 2005 and 2006, as well as the esteemed CEIBS Medal for Teaching Excellence in 2010.
Encina Hall, William J. Perry Room C231
616 Jane Stanford Way
This event will be held in-person only, registration is required.
Encina Hall, East Wing, Room 413
Office Hours:
Select Wednesdays | 2:00-5:00 PM
Please schedule a meeting in advance
Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he completed Policy, Regulation, and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries (Cambridge University Press, 2019), an interdisciplinary effort analyzing the effect of government policy on the power and telecom sectors in China. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume Encyclopedia of Economic History (2003). His current research focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics, industrial policy and innovation and economic growth and structural change.
Encina Hall, East Wing, Room 014
Office Hours:
Select Mondays | 3:00-5:00 PM
Please schedule a meeting in advance
Dr. Xiaonian Xu is Professor Emeritus at CEIBS, where he held the position of Professor of Economics and Finance from 2004 to 2018. In recognition of his contributions, he was named an Honorary Professor in Economics from September 2018 to August 2023.
Between 1999 and 2004, Dr. Xu served as Managing Director and Head of Research at China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC). Before joining CICC, he was a Senior Economist at Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong from 1997 to 1998, and worked as a World Bank consultant in Washington DC in 1996. Dr. Xu was appointed Assistant Professor of Amherst College, Massachusetts, where he taught Economics and Financial Markets from 1991 to 1995. Earlier in his career, he was a research fellow at the State Development Research Centre of China from 1981 to 1985.
Dr. Xu earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis, in 1991, and an MA in Industrial Economics from the People's University of China in 1981. In 1996, he was awarded the distinguished Sun Yefang Economics Prize, the highest honor in the field in China, for his research on China’s capital markets. His research interests include Macroeconomics, Financial Institutions and Financial Markets, Transitional Economies, China’s Economic Reform, Corporate Strategy and Digital Transformation. His publication includes: Freedom and Market Economy, There has Never been A Savior, China: Market Economy or Planned Economy, the Nature of the Business and the Internet, and the Nature of the Business and the Internet, 2nd Edition.
A dedicated educator, he has been recognized with the CEIBS Teaching Excellence Award in 2005 and 2006, as well as the esteemed CEIBS Medal for Teaching Excellence in 2010.
Tuesday, February 4, 2025 | 1:00 pm -2:30 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
In this study we look at the evolution of patenting in China from 1985-2019. We develop a new method to measure the importance of an individual patent for innovation based on the use of a Large Language Model to process patent text data and a new theory of the innovation process. We also classify patent ownership using a comprehensive business registry. We highlight three insights. First, patents that are important for innovation have become less important on average. Second, knowledge within China has become more important than knowledge outside of China for directing innovation in China. Finally, knowledge produced by Chinese entities within China has become more important than knowledge produced by foreign entities.
Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar.
Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he completed Policy, Regulation, and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries (Cambridge University Press, 2019), an interdisciplinary effort analyzing the effect of government policy on the power and telecom sectors in China. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume Encyclopedia of Economic History (2003). His current research focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics, industrial policy and innovation and economic growth and structural change.
Interested in meeting with Professor Brandt one-on-one?
Sign up to speak with him during his office hours:
Wednesday, 1/29 or 2/12 | 2:00-5:00 PM
Please schedule a meeting in advance and use your Stanford email to log in.
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
The Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institution's (SCCEI) annual China Conference brings together leading voices from policy, business, and academia to examine key economic trends in China and their implications for the world.
This year's conference will examine China's role in a changing global economy. Panels of experts from Stanford and around the world will take a deep dive into China’s evolving economic ambitions and self-perception on the global stage, assess the roles of state and private enterprises in advancing China’s goals, and analyze the impacts on global trade, finance, and institutions.
We are finalizing an outstanding lineup of speakers from academia, industry, and policy communities. Updates will be posted here as confirmed.
Location:
Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University
Scott Rozelle
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship; Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University
Elizabeth Economy
Hargrove Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Moderator:
Hongbin Li
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
The James Liang Endowed Chair; Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University
Session Panelists:
Gangsheng Bao
Professor of Political Science, Fudan University
Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions
Jonathan Czin
Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center
Brookings Institute
Stephen Kotkin
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies;
Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Moderator:
Ruixue Jia
Associate Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy
University of California San Diego
Session Panelists:
Nan Jia
Professor of Management and Organization
University of Southern California
Arthur Kroeber
Founding Partner
Gavekal Dragonomics
Dan Wang
Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Moderator:
Zhiguo He
James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business; Faculty Affiliate, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions,
Stanford University
Sean Stein
President, U.S.-China Business Council
Moderator:
Scott Rozelle
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Stanford University
Session Panelists:
Deborah Brautigam
Director of the China Africa Research Initiative; Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Political Economy Emerita
Johns Hopkins University
Kyle Chan
Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology
Princeton University
Ramin Toloui
Distinguished Policy Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University
Moderator:
Shaoda Wang
Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Stanford University; Assistant Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
Hongbin Li
Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Stanford University
Gangsheng Bao, Professor of Political Science, Fudan University; Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions
Gangsheng Bao is a Professor of Political Science at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, and a Skyline Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. He earned his Ph.D. from Peking University in 2012. His research interests include political theory, comparative politics, and political history, focusing on political modernization and democratization. He has published numerous journal articles and authored several books, including The Fate of Civilization States: From Political Crisis to Modernization (2024), Political Evolution: From Ancient Times to the 21st Century (2023), Crises and Solutions: Reflections on Political Thought in Early China (2023), The Logic of Democracy (2018), The Common Sense of Modern Politics (2015), and Politics of Democratic Breakdown (2014). His works have received multiple awards, including "Best Social Science Book of the Year" (2014).
Deborah Brautigam, Director of the China Africa Research Initiative; Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Political Economy Emerita, Johns Hopkins University
Deborah Brautigam is the Director of the China Africa Research Initiative and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Political Economy Emerita at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Her recent books include The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Will Africa Feed China? (Oxford University Press, 2015). She has been a visiting scholar at the World Bank, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and advised more than a dozen governments on China-Africa relations. Her PhD is from the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Kyle Chan, Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology, Princeton University
Kyle Chan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sociology Department at Princeton University and an adjunct researcher with the RAND Corporation. His work focuses on industrial policy, clean technology, and infrastructure development in China and India. Dr. Chan has testified as an expert for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and has been cited in international media, including the Financial Times, The New Yorker, Nikkei Asia, Times of India, and Le Monde. He writes a popular newsletter on these topics called High Capacity.
Jonathan Czin, Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institute
Jonathan A. Czin is the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at the CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts. Czin led analysis on Chinese politics and policymaking, briefing senior policymakers on President Xi Jinping and key issues. From 2021 to 2023, he was director for China at the National Security Council, advising on White House diplomacy with China. Czin previously served at the Department of Defense and a CIA field station in Southeast Asia. Czin holds a master’s from Yale University, graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College, and studied at Oxford University.
Elizabeth Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow and co-chair of the Program on the U.S., China, and the World at the Hoover Institution. From 2021 to 2023, she served as senior advisor for China at the Department of Commerce. Previously, she was the C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations for over a decade. An expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Economy is the author of The World According to China (2022), The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018), and By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest Is Changing the World (2014). Her work has been widely recognized and translated into a dozen languages. Economy has published in top journals, appeared on national television and radio, and testified before Congress. She serves on the boards of several organizations, including the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and has taught at multiple prestigious universities.
Zhiguo He, James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business; Faculty Affiliate, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University
Zhiguo He is the James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is a financial economist whose expertise covers financial markets, financial institutions, and macroeconomics broadly. He is also conducting academic research on Chinese financial markets, and writing academic articles on new progress in the area of cryptocurrency and blockchains. Before joining Stanford GSB, he was on the faculty of Chicago Booth from 2008 to 2023, where he received tenure in 2015 and led Becker Friedman Institute China from 2020 to 2023. He holds degrees from Tsinghua University and a PhD from Northwestern. He was named a 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and has won numerous awards for his outstanding scholastic record.
Nan Jia, Professor of Management and Organization, University of Southern California
Nan Jia is Professor of Strategic Management. She holds a PhD in Strategic Management from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto (Canada). Her research interests include corporate political strategy, business-governance relationships, and applications of Artificial Intelligence technologies in management. Nan’s research has been published in multiple top journals in strategic management. She currently serves as an associate editor for the Strategic Management Journal and on the editorial boards of multiple leading academic journals.
Ruixue Jia, Associate Professor of Economics, School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California San Diego
Ruixue Jia is an associate professor of economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. Jia is interested in the interplay of economics, history and politics. One stream of her research focuses on understanding elite formation and elite influence, in both historical and modern contexts. A second focus of her work is the deep historical roots of economic development. More recently, she started following the ongoing transformation of the manufacturing sector in China and expanded her interest to labor and technology issues. She is affiliated with the BREAD, CESifo, CIFAR and NBER, and is an associate editor for AEJ: Economic Policy, Economic Journal, Journal of Comparative Economics and Journal of Development Economics.
Stephen Kotkin, Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Stephen Kotkin is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Asian Pacific Research Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, both at Stanford. He directs the Hoover History Lab, which uses history to address contemporary policy challenges. At Princeton, where he taught for 33 years, he directed the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, where he established the Wythes Center for Contemporary China and the Chadha Center on Global India, among other endeavors, and edited a book series on Northeast Asia. He is completing a multivolume biography of Joseph Stalin.
Arthur R. Kroeber, Founding Partner, Gavekal Dragonomics
Arthur R. Kroeber is the founder of Gavekal Dragonomics, a China-focused economic research firm with offices in Beijing and Hong Kong; and partner in its parent firm Gavekal. Before establishing Dragonomics in 2002, he spent fifteen years as a financial and economic journalist in China and South Asia. He is adjunct professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee on US-China Relations. His book China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know (2nd edition 2020) is published by Oxford University Press.
Hongbin Li, The James Liang Endowed Chair; Faculty Co-director of Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University
Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Li obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 before joining the economics department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University from 2007 to 2016 in the School of Economics and Management and was the founder and Executive Associate Director of the China Social and Economic Data Center. Li’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, Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship; Faculty Co-director of Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University
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. He received his B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health, and nutrition. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press.
Sean Stein, President, U.S.-China Business Council
Sean Stein is the president of the US-China Business Council. He previously served as the board chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and is the chair emeritus of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. He also co-chaired the China Public Policy Practice at Covington and Burling where he advised international businesses on political risk, public affairs, communications, and US and China government relations. Sean previously served for nearly three decades as a US diplomat, including as Consul General in Shenyang and Shanghai. He also served on the China desk at the State Department, at the former consulate general in Chengdu, and in other positions around the Indo-Pacific. Sean speaks Mandarin and Indonesian and is a graduate of Georgetown University.
Ramin Toloui, Distinguished Policy Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University
Ramin Toloui is a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, focusing on global economic and geopolitical competition, financial crises, and critical technologies. From 2022 to 2024, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, shaping U.S. economic strategy, strengthening global supply chains, and overseeing sanctions programs. From 2014 to 2017, he was Assistant Secretary for International Finance at the U.S. Treasury, managing global financial stability efforts. Toloui played a key role in shaping the U.S. government’s approaches to navigating Ukraine’s financial crisis, threats to Eurozone financial stability, Brexit, and China’s foreign exchange and market volatility. Before joining the U.S. Treasury, Toloui served as Global Co-Head of Emerging Markets Portfolio Management at PIMCO. Toloui holds degrees from Harvard University and Oxford University.
Dan Wang, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Dan Wang is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and is one of the leading international experts on China’s technological capabilities, especially semiconductors and clean tech. Dan was previously a fellow at the Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center. From 2017 to 2023, Dan worked in China as the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, based in Hong Kong, Beijing, and then Shanghai. In addition to a widely circulated annual letter from China, Dan’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, New York Magazine, and The Atlantic. Dan is the author of Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, forthcoming in Fall 2025 from W. W. Norton (US) and Penguin (UK).
Shaoda Wang, Skyline Scholar, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Stanford University; Assistant Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago
Shaoda Wang is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, 2024-25 Skyline Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and an affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis in Development (BREAD). He also serves as the deputy faculty director of the China branches of the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI-China) and the Energy Policy Institute at UChicago (EPIC-China). He is an applied economist with research interests in development economics, environmental economics, and political economy, with a regional focus on China. He holds a BA from Peking University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
Parking meters are enforced Monday - Friday 8 AM to 4 PM, unless otherwise posted.
The event will take place in the Bechtel Conference Center located on the first floor of Encina Hall Central. The closest visitor parking to Encina Hall is:
Please visit the this website for more detailed parking options and directions to the venue.
Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford University
This event is by invitation only.
The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home and exporting these technologies abroad. Do these technology transfers help recipient governments expand digital surveillance, impose internet shutdowns, filter the internet, and target repression for online content? We focus on Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications provider, which is partly state-owned and increasingly regarded as an instrument of its foreign policy. Using a global sample and an identification strategy based on generalized synthetic controls, we show that the effect of Huawei transfers depends on preexisting political institutions in recipient countries. In the world’s autocracies, Huawei technology facilitates digital repression. We find no effect in the world’s democracies, which are more likely to have laws that regulate digital privacy, institutions that punish government violations, and vibrant civil societies that step in when institutions come under strain. Most broadly, this article advances a large literature about the geopolitical implications of China’s rise.
The Asia-Pacific region has seen extraordinary economic achievements. Japan's post-World War II transformation into an economic powerhouse challenging US dominance by the late 1980s was miraculous. China's rise as the world's second-largest economy is one of the 21st century's most stunning stories. India, now a top-five economy by GDP, is rapidly ascending. Despite its small population, Australia ranked among the top ten GDP nations in 1960 and has remained resilient. While cultivating, attracting, and leveraging talent has been crucial to growth in these countries, their approaches have varied widely, reflecting significant cultural, historical, and institutional differences.
In this sweeping analysis of talent development strategies, Gi-Wook Shin investigates how these four "talent giants'' achieved economic power and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions. This book offers invaluable insights for policymakers and is essential for scholars, students, and readers interested in understanding the dynamics of talent and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.
This title is forthcoming in July 2025.
"The Four Talent Giants is a wonderful book, full of new ideas and, especially, comparative empirical research. Gi-Wook Shin's ambitious treatment of the topic of human capital, or 'talent,' in the context of a globalized economy is very important and reading it will be a rewarding exercise for scholars, politicians, corporate leaders, and many others."
—Nirvikar Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz
"The current scholarly literature offers multiple country-specific talent formation studies, including those on the transformative role of skilled migration. However, few authors have dared to attempt a thorough cross-national analysis, comparing the nature and impact of policies across highly variable geopolitical contexts. The Four Talent Giants achieves this goal triumphantly, and accessibly, assessing the global implications of national experimentation for effective talent portfolio management."
—Lesleyanne Hawthorne, University of Melbourne
National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India
Friday, February 7, 2025 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
Using cross-border holding data from all custodians—financial institutions that safeguard and manage assets—in China’s Stock Connect program, we provide evidence that Chinese mainland insiders evaded see-through surveillance, a tracking mechanism to monitor the true beneficiaries of financial transactions, by engaging in round-tripping trades that disguise domestic capital as foreign investments. Following the 2018 regulatory reform of Northbound Investor Identification, which enhanced regulatory oversight and identification of investors, the correlation between insider trading and northbound flows—capital moving from offshore markets into mainland-listed stocks—weakens. Additionally, the reform reduced the return predictability of these flows, meaning that insider activity within northbound flows no longer strongly predicts future stock performance. This reduction in return predictability is particularly pronounced among less prestigious foreign custodians and cross-operating mainland custodians, who were more commonly used by mainland insiders to conceal their activities. Our analysis highlights the critical role of regulatory cooperation in managing capital market integration and addressing cross-border regulatory arbitrage.
Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.
Professor Zhiguo He is the James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is a financial economist whose expertise covers financial markets, financial institutions, and macroeconomics broadly. He is also conducting academic research on Chinese financial markets, and writing academic articles on new progress in the area of cryptocurrency and blockchains. Before joining Stanford GSB, he was on the faculty of Chicago Booth from 2008 to 2023, where he received tenure in 2015 and led Becker Friedman Institute China from 2020 to 2023.
His research has been published in leading academic journals in finance and economics. After serving as associate editors for several leading academic journals, He served as the guest editor of the Review of Finance ”Special Issue on China” and currently serves as the editor of the Review of Asset Pricing Studies.
Professor He received his bachelor and master degrees from the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University before receiving his PhD from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 2008.
A NOTE ON LOCATION
Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
Encina Hall, East Wing, Room 413
Office Hours:
Select Wednesdays | 2:00-5:00 PM
Please schedule a meeting in advance
Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he completed Policy, Regulation, and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries (Cambridge University Press, 2019), an interdisciplinary effort analyzing the effect of government policy on the power and telecom sectors in China. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume Encyclopedia of Economic History (2003). His current research focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics, industrial policy and innovation and economic growth and structural change.
How stable is politics in today's China? Many observers inside and outside the country were stunned by the sudden dismissal in December of Miao Hua, the head of the powerful political work department of the PLA and a member of the Central Military Commission. Takahara will discuss the state of Chinese politics and look into what we can expect of China's response to the 2nd Trump Administration.
This webinar event is co-hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco
Speaker:
Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics at The University of Tokyo. From April to July 2024, he is also serving as Senior Fellow of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University, and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.
Discussant:
Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.
From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.
Moderator:
Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.
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Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.
From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.
Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."
Purpose: This mixed-methods study examined how differences in parental time, knowledge, and economic constraints, as well as community socioeconomic contexts, may contribute to differences in home language environment and child language ability outcomes between peri-urban and rural households in China.
Method: We conducted an explanatory sequential mixed-methods analysis using data from 158 children aged 18–24 months among peri-urban and rural households with low socioeconomic status (SES) in southwestern China. Audio recordings were collected from each household and analyzed using the Language ENvironment Analysis system. The Mandarin version of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories was administered to each child's primary caregiver. We also conducted qualitative interviews with primary caregivers in 31 peri-urban and 32 rural households. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded.
Results: The quantitative results reveal that children in peri-urban households heard less adult speech and had lower language ability than children in rural households. Directed content analysis of interviews found that peri-urban caregivers faced more severe time constraints and less favorable community socioeconomic contexts than rural primary caregivers. Taken together, these findings suggest that differences in time constraints and community socioeconomic contexts between the two populations are the most likely factors contributing to the inferior language environment and language ability among children in peri-urban households.
Conclusion: The mixed-methods study indicated that parental time constraints and community socioeconomic contexts should be considered alongside SES for a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing parental investment in the home language environment in China.