Chinese Village, Global Market

This will be a special session of the New England China Seminar dedicated to the memory of Stuart Schram.

Yantian Village has transformed from a sleepy rural backwater into a key part of the global production chain over the last 30 years. Sitting on the Pearl River delta, it lies at the heart of southern China’s grain basket. Today, you would be hard pushed to find paddy fields and water buffaloes, and the village is almost unrecognizable from its former pastoral tranquility. At its peak, the village was home to 400 foreign-invested enterprises and 150,000 migrant workers. Tony Saich will focus on what facilitated the transition and the challenges the village now faces in sustaining its development.

Anthony Saich is Daewoo Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. He teaches courses on comparative political institutions, democratic governance, and transitional economies, with a focus on China. He first visited China as a student in 1976 and continues to visit each year. Currently, he is a guest professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He also advises a wide range of government, private, and nonprofit organizations on work in China and elsewhere in Asia. He is the coauthor with Biliang Hu of the book Chinese Village, Global Market: New Collectives and Rural Development (2012). Tony Saich was a student of Stewart Schram at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The New England China Seminar is a two-part event. Please also see:
7:45 pm   Roderick MacFarquhar by clicking here

6:30 pm Dinner Option
We welcome participants who wish to attend both sessions of the New England China Seminar to join colleagues for a buffet dinner at 6:30-7:30 pm, in Room S030. The dinner cost is $15 per person ($10 for students). Due to space limitations, we will accept 30 reservations on a first come first serve basis. Advance reservation and payment is required. Please register before 5:00 pm on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 by clicking here.