William Overholt argues that as China reaches a threshold where success has eliminated the conditions that enabled miraculous growth, Xi Jinping is pursuing the riskiest political strategy of any important national leader. Alternative outcomes include continued impressive growth and political stability, Japanese-style stagnation, and a major political-economic crisis.
Mei Fong Discusses Her Book "One Child: The Story Of China's Most Radical Experiment"
Mei Fong, a Pulitzer winning author and former USC Annenberg professor, examines the origins of China's one child policy and some of its unintended consequences through a narrative-rich story.
March 23, 2016
About the book
China's over three decades-long population planning policy, known popularly as the 'one child policy,' took a major shift when Beijing announced late last year a shift to a nationwide two-child policy. In One Child, Mei Fong writes about the origins of the policy and some of its unintended consequences through a narrative-rich story that is "evocatively rendered and peppered with quirky characters, including a sex-doll salesman and a dating guru who claims that overly assertive women contract breast cancer." (Wall Street Journal) The book has also garnered critical praise from New York Times, Guardian, Independent and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
For more information go to, visit www.meifong.org. A Chinese translation of the book is available here. You can support dessemination of the free Chinese version through a donation here.
This video is also available on the USCI YouTube Channel.
About the author
Author and journalist Mei Fong covered Hong Kong and China for the Wall Street Journal, where she won a shared Pulitzer for her stories on China’s transformative process ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She is believed to be the first Malaysian to win a Pulitzer. Her stories on China’s migrant workers also won a 2006 Human Rights Press Award from Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Correspondents Club, as well as awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia and Society of Professional Journalist. After leaving the China bureau, she was on faculty at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications. She is currently a fellow at DC-based thinktank New America.
Featured Articles
April 16, 2018
The U.S.-China Institute and PEN America hosted the West Coast launch of the PEN America report on social media in China, Forbidden Feeds.
Events
April 26, 2018 - 4:00pm
Los Angeles, California
Please join the USC U.S.-China Institute and USC professor Brett Sheehan for a discussion on the evolution of Chinese capitalism chronicling the fortunes of the Song family of North China under five successive authoritarian governments.
June 5, 2018 - 7:00pm
Los Angeles, California
Please join the USC U.S.-China Institute, the East Asian Studies Center, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts for a screening of the 1993 Chinese film Woman Sesame Oil Maker (香魂女). It tells the story of a woman in a small village who buys a peasant wife for his mentally disabled son after her sesame oil business becomes unexpectedly successful. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the director, Xie Fei (谢飞).