China 21

Deborah and Jack unpacks the details and highlights of China’s latest five-year-plan, the most basic and authoritative document that charts out the country’s strategic vision, covering policies, measures and targets on domestic social issues, to the environment, to education and economic development.

The document is meant to mobilize the nation’s officials and state-owned enterprises to work jointly across the sectors and ministries on implementing the goals from the central to the provincial level. It is also a window into China’s policy formulation process and how their leaders are responding to complex domestic and international challenges. Today, we have two doctoral candidates in political science who have followed closely the 13th Five Year Plan that was recently ratified in Beijing. They will share with us their analysis on the significant policies in the plan and what story it tells us about China’s recent challenges and its hope for its future.

Deborah Seligsohn is a PhD candidate in political science and international relations here at UC San Diego. Her dissertation focuses on air pollution regulation in China and India. From 2007 to 2012 she was the Principal Advisor to the World Resources Institute’s China Energy and Environmental Program, based in Beijing. Deborah is a twenty-year veteran at the US Department of State, working on energy and environment issues in China, India, Nepal and New Zealand. Her most recent position at the State Department was as Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor in Beijing. Deborah has a master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, and a BA from Harvard University in East Asian Studies. She blogs regularly at ChinaFAQs, ChinaFile and the Huffington Post and has been published in the New Scientist, the Financial Times and the South China Morning Post.

Jack Zhang is also a PhD candidate in political science and international relations at UC San Diego. His research interests lie at the intersection of international political economy and security, with a focus on contemporary China. Jack’s dissertation investigates the impact of interstate conflict on multinational firms operating in belligerent countries as well as the political strategies that these firms adopt to influence the policies of home and host governments. Jack argues that firms play a crucial and understudied role in commercial peace theories. His research seeks to explore their role as strategic actors in the politics of war and peace. Prior to coming to UC San Diego, Jack worked as a China researcher for the Eurasia Group in Washington, DC. He was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to conduct fieldwork in Beijing on the economic effects of political crises on China based foreign multinationals during the 2014-2015 academic year. He also serve as senior advisor to UC San Diego’s China Focus Blog and can be found on Twitter @HanFeiTzu

十三五 animated video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhLrHCKMqyM

State-media Infographic:
http://english.gov.cn/r/Pub/GOV/p1/Content/Policies/Images/2015/11/04/13th_plan_on_livelihood_%283%29.jpg

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Professor Victor Shih speaks with Ken Wilcox of Silicon Valley Bank on the lessons learned from running a joint-venture with a state-owned bank and how banking practices have evolved during recent financial crises in China.

Victor Shih is a leading expert in examining the intersection of China’s elite politics and the People’s Republic’s financial policies. He has written widely on the topic and teaches a course at UC San Diego on Financing the Chinese Economic Miracle. Not only does Professor Shih have an authoritative voice on the subject, he has gain a following on Twitter for his interesting takes on China’s politics and economy. You can join over 12,000 others on Twitter by following him @vshih2

Ken Wilcox is the Emeritus Chairman at Silicon Valley Bank. He previously served as CEO of SVB Financial Group. In that role, he successfully pursued a strategy of expansion into China. In 2011, he made the key decision to relocate to Shanghai to lead a joint-venture with the state-owned Shanghai Pudong Development Bank that proved to be a critical factor in SVB’s pioneering role in expanding financial services in the innovation sector, and SVB’s overall success in China.

Mr. Wilcox was on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and he still serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards, including the Asia Society of Northern California. He is also an adjunct professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. Among many other accolades, Mr. Wilcox was honored by the Shanghai Municipal Government with the “Magnolia Silver Award”, a municipal honor given to expatriates for their outstanding contribution to the city's economic, social or cultural development.

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Two of the most influential China Hands, Professor Susan Shirk and Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, discuss the current state of Chinese politics, the South China Sea, and US foreign policy toward China.

Susan Shirk is the esteemed chair of the 21st Century China Program, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy is one of the most respected diplomatic experts on East Asia. He retired after a 45 year career in the US Department of State as Career Ambassador, the highest rank in the Foreign Service. He was a three-time ambassador who served as the top U.S. envoy in Singapore, China, and Indonesia. Ambassador Roy is also the Founding Director Emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S. at the Wilson Center.

Ambassador Roy delivered the 2016 Ellsworth Memorial Lecture at UC San Diego on March 28. Full text, photos and additional interviews can be found at china.ucsd.edu

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Professor Albert Park of Hong Kong University of Science & Technology talks with Samuel Tsoi about his research on human capital and labor, firm performance, poverty and inequality, rural-urban migration, and the social safety net in the People's Republic of China.

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

Albert Park is a development economist who focuses on China. Prof. Park is the Director of the Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Chair Professor of Social Science, Professor of Economics, and Senior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 香港科技大學 or HKUST. He completed his Ph.D. at Stanford and previously held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and University of Oxford. In recent years, his research areas include human capital and labor, poverty and inequality, and firm performance. http://iems.ust.hk/

Dr. Park presented his latest results on rural microfinance at the China Research Workshop series on March 4 at UC San Diego: http://fudan-uc.ucsd.edu/workshop/

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Barboza reflects on his decade-long journey of reporting on China's economy, culminating in his investigative article on the hidden wealth of China's political elite, published by the New York Times in 2013.

David Barboza has been a Shanghai-based correspondent for The New York Times since November 2004. He was a freelance writer and a research assistant for The New York Times before being hired in 1997 as a staff writer. For five years, he was the Midwest business correspondent based in Chicago. Since 2008, he has served as the paper’s Shanghai bureau chief.

In 2013, Barboza was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting “for his striking exposure of corruption at high levels of the Chinese government, including billions in secret wealth owned by relatives of the prime minister, well documented work published in the face of heavy pressure from the Chinese officials.” He was also part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Barboza has won numerous other awards in his journalistic career, including The Times’s internal business award, the Nathaniel Nash Award, and the Gerald Loeb Award for business reporting. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/david_barboza/index.html

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project