Global Economic Governance in Transition: A View from China

22 Feb 2012

Cathy Cullen

On Monday 20 February 2012, Dr Lan Xue, Professor and Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, spoke at the IIEA, on the topic “Global Economic Governance in Transition: A View from China”.

In his speech, Professor Xue provided a general overview of the key transitions taking place within China, detailed key determinants of China’s role in the global governance system and proposed a number of ways of making the G20 a more effective mechanism for global economic governance.

Professor Xue mentioned that China is currently undergoing four major transformations, since 1979, related to its economic system, industrial structure, society and governance structure. Professor Xue stated that China’s economic system is in transition from a ‘central planning’ model to a market based system. In terms of industrial structure, China remains a global manufacturing hub, according to Professor Xue, with the manufacturing sector consistently contributing to approximately 50% of China’s annual GDP since 1980. However, he commented that China is undergoing a transition in other sectors, such as agriculture and services. Professor Xue reported that the agricultural sector in China fuelled approximately 30% of GDP in 1980, but only 11.3% of GDP in 2007. In contrast, the importance of the services sector to China has increased in the same period, generating 40.1% of annual GDP in 2007. The third transformation, which Professor Xue discussed, is China’s transition from a rural and closed society to one that is increasingly open and urbanised. He reported that in 2011, 51.3% of the Chinese population (690 million people) lived in urban areas and quantified that approximately 1% of the Chinese population is relocating from rural to urban areas every year. In terms of international linkages, Professor Xue noted that much larger numbers of Chinese nationals are travelling abroad, with 57.94 million Chinese tourists travelling outside China in 2011, in contrast to only 10.47 million Chinese tourists in 2000. Speaking about the reform of China’s governance structure, Professor Xue emphasised that matters of broader public participation in the policy process, the growing number of NGO’s and the changing nature of wider civil society will continue to be critical issues. He also commented that all these transformation are taking place at the same time, in a country of one billion people, which is historically unprecedented in terms of the scale and speed of transformation in an economy.

You can download and read the full post event report in PDF format here.  

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