The Wellington Conference on Contemporary China 2010
China and India: The End of Development Models?
An international conference
Sponsored and organised by
The New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre
in association with
University of Canterbury
and
Asian Studies Institue, Victoria University of Wellington
12-13 April, 2010
Victoria University of Wellington
Over the last several years, the impressive growth of China and India has caused a global wave of anxiety about the rise of power and wealth outside the developed world. More pointedly, scholarly interest and debate have focused on how rising China and India might change the international political and economic structure, and which of the two might outperform the other in the long run. What is missing amidst the anxieties and fanfare about the two new "giants" is a nuanced understanding of how impressive growth and social transformation have been achieved in these two unique countries. With the rise of Japan in the 1950s and 1960s and the "four little tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) in the 1960s and 1970s, the extension of high growth to Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, and now the dynamic economies of China and India, scholars have enough empirical evidence to revisit long-debated issues in post-War development research and debate: Is the developmental state essential for economic growth? Is export concentration inevitable? Are corporate groupings necessary? Does law matter? How do cultural and social relations contribute to economic and social development?
Moreover, China and India, two of the world's major civilizations, have taken very different developmental paths and, indeed, have been treated as problematic cases in scholarly literature. Modern state building started in each under very different conditions. With the two reaching new phases in their modern development, it will be useful to revisit the scholarly debate on modern development and hopefully to lift it to a new level: how do such factors as colonial experiences, nationalism, communism and socialism affect a nation's modern development? How do traditional social structure, values and relations transform or persist and how do these shape the emergent modern state? Are there different types of modernity or different models of modern development?
The conference will bring together leading scholars in the field to address these issues. We are very pleased to have Professor Wing Thye Woo of UC Davis; Professor Pranab Bardhan, UC Berkeley; Professor Zhenglai Deng of Fudan University; Professor Prasenjit Duara of National University of Singapore; Professor B. Sudhakara Reddy of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; Professor Fu Jun of Peking University; Professor Sun Shihai of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Dr John Alexander Michael of University of Madras, Professor Sheng Kaiyan of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences; Professor Guo Sujian of Fudan University; Professor Dilip K. Das, of Conestoga College; Professor Heng Quan of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
We also invite paper proposals on any aspect of the conference theme and participation of scholars in related disciplines. Selected papers will appear in an edited volume with an international publisher. Those interested in giving a paper at the conference should forward proposals (title and a 150-word abstract, with full contact details) to Professor Xiaoming Huang ( Sekhar.Bandyopadhyay@vuw.ac.nz, co-chairs of the conference organizing committee, no later than 30 January, 2010.xiaoming.huang@vuw.ac.nz and Professor Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (
For those who merely want to participate but not present a paper, please send your name and contact details to Ms. Sue Ryn Ong at SueRyn.Ong@vuw.ac.nz We will send the registration details and conference programme when they are available.
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