Events

New Insights Lecture on "China's rise and its implications for East Asia and the US"

China's rapid growth over the last two decades has attracted both admirers and detractors. While the "rise of China" has become a massive cliché, there remains much debate between the optimists and pessimists over China's internal dynamics and global aspirations.

The optimists point out that China's increasing integration into the global economy will create natural incentives for its government to play by international norms, and contribute to global growth and stability. China, it is argued, will not want to undermine the global system that has enabled it to lift 400 million people out of poverty since 1990. China's own diplomacy has also become more responsible and confident, its economy is now a major engine of regional growth, and its security posture is generally regarded as a benign one.

On their part, the pessimists argue that China's rapid economic growth, combined with the absence of institutions to meet growing demands for political participation, will cause increasing tensions. In 2005, there were as many as 87,000 mass group incidents, a ten-fold increase over 1993. Domestic instability could set back China's growth, or it could force the regime to turn to nationalism as a social glue to replace its eroded communism. If so, its foreign policy could become more aggressive should the regime come under serious internal stress. Pessimists also point to China's large increases in military expenditure, and its dealings with rogue regimes to secure access to energy and other raw materials for its booming economy.

Regardless of one's assessment, China's economic growth is already changing the regional order. As East Asia becomes more tied to the Chinese economy, China's political clout inside and outside of regional institutions can be expected to rise. China's rise also unsettles its Asian neighbours as they struggle to find new niches of comparative advantage and worry about how to compete with China in attracting foreign direct investment.

This New Insights Lecture with one of the leading experts on China, Professor David M. Lampton, will focus on the rise of China and its implications on East Asia, the United States, and the regional balance of power.

The lecture will be followed by a Q&A segment chaired by Professor Wang Gungwu, Director of the East Asian Institute and Faculty Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

Speaker Profile

David M. Lampton is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and is Director of Chinese Studies at The Nixon Center. Before joining SAIS and The Nixon Center, he was president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations in New York City. The National Committee is the nation's oldest non-profit, educational organization devoted to enhancing mutual understanding among the peoples of the United States and China's mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Prior to 1988, Mr. Lampton was director of the China Policy Program at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, and associate professor of political science at Ohio State University. Mr. Lampton is the author of numerous books and articles on Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, with articles appearing in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. Most recently, he was the author of Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing U.S.-China Relations, 1989-2000 (University of California Press, 2001), and editor of The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Age of Reform, 1978-2000 (Stanford University Press, 2001). He has appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, This Week with David Brinkley, NBC's Today show, ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings, and CNN, among others. Mr. Lampton received his Ph.D. and undergraduate degrees from Stanford University and has lived in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

[Source: http://www.nixoncenter.org/davidm.htm]