Globalization Challenges China

Author: Hu Angang, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-06-01
Features: The book Globalization Challenges China focuses on researching and discussing the opportunities, challenges, and strategic choices China will face in the process of integrating into the world economy in a broader range and deeper level in the early 21st century. The book is divided into five parts.
Part I "Integration and Economic Catch-up: Research on China's Globalization Strategy." This paper explores the process, characteristics, and unevenness of economic globalization after 1820 from a macro perspective of history and international comparison, as well as China's rise and decline in the process of economic integration and its new catch-up strategy. It constructs an internationally comparable "Globalization Index" to analyze and compare the differences in integration progress levels between China and 15 major economies in the world. Using the "Globalization Index," it examines the regional imbalances in the integration progress levels of China's 31 provinces and regions.
Part II "Income Poverty, Human Poverty, and Knowledge Poverty: China's Comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy under Globalization." This paper focuses on exploring the new forms of poverty in China under globalization and the goals and policy choices of the new comprehensive anti-poverty strategy framework in the first half of the 21st century. A core argument emphasized in the paper is that economic growth and anti-poverty efforts must be elevated to the strategic level of continuously improving the overall welfare of humanity, enhancing human development capabilities, and genuinely expanding the entire space of human freedom. The paper estimates China's three types of poverty—income poverty, human poverty, and knowledge poverty—and focuses on analyzing the main causes of China's poverty from the perspectives of economic growth patterns and distribution inequality.
Part III "Creative Destruction: China's Unemployment Impact and New Industry Strategy." This paper analyzes the large-scale and sudden "wave of layoffs and unemployment" in China's traditional formal sector (urban state-owned and collective units) and traditional industries after the 1990s through systematic processing of new statistical data. By systematically processing relevant data, the paper elaborates on the overall scale, characteristics (industry characteristics, regional characteristics, demographic characteristics), economic, social, and political impacts of current unemployment in China, as well as policy choices to address the current large-scale impact of layoffs and unemployment.
Part IV "Information and Development: National Strategy to Narrow the Information Gap." The central argument of this paper is that while accelerating the networking and informatization of the national economy and society, it is essential to pay close attention to the issue of the information gap between regions and between urban and rural areas. It should be regarded as a major development strategy in the 21st century to narrow the information gap and eliminate knowledge poverty, and it should also be included as an important part of the construction of networking and informatization.
Part V "Three Kingdoms and Four Parties: China's Regional Grouping Development Strategy." Based on the basic theory of regional trade liberalization, the author explains an imaginative yet feasible framework for regional trade liberalization, which is to establish a regional free trade area including China, Japan, South Korea, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.