China's Global Impact Call for papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

CHINA’S GLOBAL IMPACT

ECONOMICS - CULTURE - POLITICS

CONFERENCE AT UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY, FRIDAY TO SUNDAY, MARCH 23-25, 2012

Limited travel grants for domestic and international travel available. Please send abstracts (150 words), c.v. (100 words), c.v. (1 page), photo until Feb 27, 2012.

The conference will bring together experts in macroeconomics, in Chinese culture and Chinese political science, presenting their findings regarding the dimensions (descriptive and comparative approaches) and reasons (interpretative and historical approaches) of China’s impact on the world today.

Description: As China emerges as the new economical powerhouse and claims its voice as a new political superpower next to the United States, the relation between the U.S. and China wavers between admiration and rivalry. In the emerging new world order, the perception by common people of these two powers is driven by emotions. This situation is similar to the West’s cold war concept of the “communist enemy” or the “capitalist enemy” and the strategies of deterrence, appeasement and detainment. The U.S. and China are emotionally perceived with fear or admiration both in their respective countries and abroad. Interdisciplinary scientific scholarship attempts to objectify the discussion by examining the dimensions and exploring the reasons for these tensions.

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Detailed Description

CHINA’S GLOBAL IMPACT

CONFERENCE AT UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY, FRIDAY TO SUNDAY, MARCH 23-25, 2012

A TRI-PARTITE OUTLOOK FROM THE U.S.-CHINA-EUROPEAN ACADEMIC COMMUNITY:

The Paradigm Shift Necessary to Balance the Economic, Political and Cross-Cultural

Dimensions of China’s Rise upon Global Equilibrium

The conference will bring together experts in macroeconomics, in Chinese culture and Chinese political science, presenting their findings regarding the dimensions (descriptive and comparative approaches) and reasons (interpretative and historical approaches) of China’s impact on the world today.

Host: Utah Valley University, Chinese Studies

Venue: Lakeview Room, 800 W University Parkway, Orem, UT 84058 USA

Conference Website: https://wiki.vm.rub.de/uvu/index.php/China%27s_Global_Impact

Presenters: 23 presenters will come from the mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the USA, and Germany; 17 have already committed to come.

Audience: The audience is expected to be between 75 and 100 people, drawn largely from UVU as well as from the community.

Promotion: The conference will be advertised through the H-Asia mailing list, through associations like the Association of Asian Studies and the International Convention of Asian Scholars, and on a UVU hosted website.

Organizer: Martin Woesler, Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah

Description As China emerges as the new economical powerhouse and claims its voice as a new political superpower next to the United States, the relation between the U.S. and China wavers between admiration and rivalry. In the emerging new world order, the perception by common people of these two powers is driven by emotions. This situation is similar to the West’s cold war concept of the “communist enemy” or the “capitalist enemy” and the strategies of deterrence, appeasement and detainment, The U.S. and China are emotionally perceived with fear or admiration both in their respective countries and abroad. Interdisciplinary scientific scholarship attempts to objectify the discussion by examining the dimensions and exploring the reasons for these tensions.

In the discourse of political science, the understanding of a black box decision-making, posing a threat to the world, still dominates, but creative new approaches like the “Adaptive Policy Making” in China (Perry/Heilmann 2011) analyze the decision-making institutions and find a “guerrilla-style decision making” as a way of dealing creatively with pervasive uncertainty. In economics, a new approach is Philip Huang’s concept (2002) of an evolutionary continuity of the Chinese economy from the macro perspective with the idea of an involution in Britain and China. In culture, conflict arises in that China has actively promoted its culture, especially its language, globally since 2007, trying to catch up with the U.S. positive image by investing massively in soft power. This activity, however, creates pressure domestically for democratization, liberalization, the establishment of a legal system, and reduced corruption. The proposed conference will bring together experts from the fields of macroeconomics, cultural comparison and political science, and aims to objectify the perception of China from a macro perspective. Conference presenters will also make comparisons to historical eras in which China served as a projection of fear (sinophobia) or admiration (sinophilia). An example for the latter is the Enlightenment, when China – identified as the center of civilization and culture in Asia – served as a source of inspiration for the philosophical elites (Leibniz/Wolff/ Rousseau/Voltaire). Sinophobia prevailed during colonialism and the Opium Wars. Due to historical and cultural determinants, the compatibility of China’s images of the outside world and its self-image with the classifications developed from an outside perspective are limited. Some presenters will show how normative assumptions and wishful thinking determine the perceptions of China in the West and/or the images of the self and the other found in China.

The three groups of scholars will present cutting edge analysis and results in their fields in three sequential sessions, offering all participants to listen to the wide range of perspectives from the different disciplines. The dialectical qualities of China offer an open space of discussion; therefore; spokesmen of the three groups will meet in an extensive final panel discussion. The outcome of the conference shall be a two-folded conference documentation: In the first part, the results of the different papers will be presented in an easily-accessible form by posing and answering questions like “Does the U.S. profit more from the China trade or looses more from it?”, “Does the world economy profit or suffer from China’s rapid growth?”, “Is there an ecological awareness in China’s population about the consequences of rapid growth?” or “Is a military conflict between the U.S. and China likely in the near future?”. The answers sum up the findings of the papers and refer to them for further elaboration. In the second part, the full papers will be documented. The practical and interdisciplinary understandable introductory first part of the conference proceedings aims to offer a guidance in the tensionary field of how China impacts the world today, and how to perceive it. The proposers intend the book to be a contribution to reduce fears about the speed of historical change today and about an unknown new rival on the world stage. One aim of the conference and its documentation is to make China better understood in the world. In historical eras like the one today, witnessing a major shift in the very foundations of our world order, it is the first duty of science to explain and to guide today’s understanding, to fight fear and hatred of the unknown other with enlightenment and knowledge about the other. Science also acknowledges its limitations -- it cannot take away the fear about asymmetric warfare of terrorists. The three sections of the conference are described below.

I: China’s Economical Impact Historically, China’s economy was the most successful one from 0-1250 AD, home of many technical innovations. Today, China returns to its ancestral leading position, invests in education, rediscovers its innovative force, but is accused of suppressing creativity and freedom outside the economy. In Chinese economy today we see not only growing Chinese self-confidence, but also trends towards globalization. One major finding is that the U.S. and China through their close economical cooperation are in a win-win situation, and, moreover, are so dependent on each other that the one cannot live without the other. One aspect of comparison in the papers is to distinguish between relative and absolute statistics, showing how scholarship makes use of these two different ways of presentation and reveal the purpose behind it. The histories of these two narratives will be presented and questioned. Papers will also refer to scholarly debates about whether China’s rise is to be seen as unique (Ramon Myers 1991), simply a return to normal (Philip Huang 1992) or in between (R. Bin Wong 1992), why the industrial revolution did not take place in China with Pomeranz’ concept of the “great divergence” (2001) and if there was an involution in Britain and China (Philip Huang 2002).

The presenters in their papers all refer to the main question of whether or not the U.S. and European approach of freedom of mind and market or the Beijing consensus of a mostly free capitalist economy within an authoritarian regime suppressing the freedom of their citizens will be more successful in the long run. All refer to ethical questions raised by the Beijing consensus.

II: China’s Cultural Impact Never before in history has China played such an active role in the world community. The Chinese people are self-confident in their burgeoning role as a leader in the world, but at the same time their patriotism complicates regional integration efforts in Asia. China now has 500 Confucius Institutes that portray it as peace loving and appealing to people. China seeks to mitigate current political tensions with its rich culture. Its representatives assure foreign leaders of China’s stabilizing role in the world economy, even at the moment of EU and U.S. debt concerns. In recent years, China was diplomatically extremely successful. The panel examines how this self-portrait is seen outside China. One presentation focuses on the Japanese reception.

Soft power (Nye 1990, Nye/Wang 2009) is understood as the power of a nation to reach its goals without military, economical and financial means, but through the attraction of its culture and its example of societal organization. While China is more successful in economical respects, it is less successful in soft power. This explains, why the Beijing consensus concept of semi-authoritarian governance to the majority of the global population is not a true alternative to a liberal society, as statistics reveal. One part of the research will be the evaluation of the motifs and ideology behind the efforts to increase soft power, also the scholarly debates about sinicization (Rawski, Ho Ping-ti 1996) will play a role. Another part of the research will collect and analyze statistical data on the criteria suggested by McClory 2010 to measure soft power. Further developing McClory’s categories (he calls “index metrics”), these categories have to be divided into A for means and B for effects: A1 the support of Confucius Institutes, A2 the policy to support Chinese language education, A3 public budget spending on culture, etc., as well as B1 study abroad figures, B2 language learning figures, differentiated by immersion programs, etc. While McClory weighted all categories equally, the new analysis will find two different figures, one for the efforts to increase the soft power and the other one for the real effect on increasing soft power and therefore the effect it has on China’s image.

III. China’s Political Impact “Adaptive policy making” (Heilmann/Perry 2011) explains the current decision-making processes in China’s government. Characteristics of this policy still are experiments as in the early People’s Republic. China's political system allows for more diverse and flexible input than would be predicted from its formal structures. This enables China domestically to maintain a stable society as well as internationally gaining regional and worldwide respect for their help in the debt crisis, for settling border conflicts and their diplomatic successes. The hard power face of China both a) domestically and b) internationally deteriorates its attractiveness as soft power:

a) Despite the economic miracle and the rise of living standard, significant problems prevail: human rights violations, separation movements, environmental pollution, and the necessity to restructure the economy.

b) Trade balance surplus, claims to sovereign islands, trade with dictators in Africa, industrial espionage, and the People’s Liberation Army’s cyber behavior.

IV. Panel Discussion. The final discussion will begin with short statements of all participants describing China’s impact on the world in political, economical and cultural respects. The discussion topic will be, What are the implications and impact on the other countries, including the superpower U.S.A., the slowly unifying European countries, the African developing countries, and the rising competitors – Brazil and India. Another question will be, What implications China’s rise has on China itself and on the world as a whole. The experts will discuss ethical and environmental implications and will put China’s rise in a larger perspective.

References

• Heilmann/Perry Sebastian Heilmann, Elizabeth J. Perry, Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China (Harvard Contemporary China), Harvard Univ Press, May 2011, 336 pp.
• Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten The Economics of Identity and Creativity: A Cultural Science Approach (Creative Economy and Innovation Culture Series), University of Queensland Press, 259 pp., December 21, 2010
• Huang, Philip C. C. “Development of Involution in Eighteenth Century Britain and China?,” Journal of Asian Studies 61.2 (2002), 501-538.
• McClory, Jonathan “The new persuaders - An international ranking of soft power”, in: (2010.12), http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/20/the-new-persuaders
• Myers, Ramon “How did the odern Chinese Economy Develop?” Journal of Asian Studies 50.3 (1991), 604-628.
• Nye, Joseph S. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, 1990
• Nye/Wang 2009, Joseph S. Nye/Jisi Wang, „Hard decisions on soft power“, in: Harvard International Review, http://hir.harvard.edu/agriculture/hard-decisions-on-soft-power
• Pomeranz, Kenneth “Political Economy and Ecology on the Eve of Industrialization,” American Historical Review 107.2 (2002), 425-446.
• Rawski, Evelyn “The Qing Formation and the Early Modern Period,” The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time, 207-241.
• Woesler, Martin The Chinese Production Culture – Genuity, Changes and Compatibility to Modern International Production Culture [in German], Bochum: European University Press 2011, 154 pp.
• Wong, R. Bin “A Note on the Myers-Huang Exchange,” JAS 51.3 (1992), 600-611.
• Wong, R. Bin “The Search for European Differences and Domination in the Early Modern World,” American Historical Review 107.2 (2002), 447-469.