Food security, energy infrastructure, urbanisation and US-China relations were amongst the issues grappled with by the new leadership of the Chinese Government as part of the prestigious China Development Forum 2013 this weekend. The Summit is seen as a critical forum through which to consider the challenges and opportunities facing China’s economic and social development, looking to 2020 and beyond.
Professor Ian Goldin and Mr Pascal Lamy, Chair of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations, hosted a session at the Forum on Building the Long-term Capacity to Meet Global Challenges. This session, held on Saturday March 23, forms part of the consultation process for the Commission,and was attended by senior Chinese decision makers, business leaders and international scholars, including Commissioner and Minister Liu He, who was recently promoted to the position of Vice Director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
China’s new leaders have identified encouraging sustainable economic development, reducing inequality and tackling corruption to be amongst their top priorities – all of which require long-term perspectives and commitment if they are to be addressed. During the session at the CDF, Lamy and other Commissioners discussed with Chinese leaders how national and international efforts could be best directed to tackle these significant challenges.
Understanding how different political structures and systems approach longer-term strategic planning is also a key focus of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations. In this regard, China’s comprehensive five year planning system, which has been in place since 1953, is a useful model for consideration as part of the Commission’s broader analysis of how to embed long-range thinking into national and global decision making structures.
This session builds on previous workshops for the Commission in Delhi, Zurich and London. Forthcoming meetings will take place in America, Paris and Brussels.
While in China, Professor Ian Goldin, Director of the Oxford Martin School also joined a select group of international economists and Chinese scholars attending a closed-door symposium on Direction and Priority Areas for China's Economic System Reform.
Attending the session, Building the Long-term Capacity to Meet Global Challenges were:
Chair:
Ian Goldin, Professor and Director, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Speakers:
Pascal Lamy, Director-General, World Trade Organisation
Lin Yifu, Professor & Honorary President, China Center for Economic Research, Peking University
Christoph Beier, Vice-chair of the Management Board, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit(GIZ) GmbH
Roland Berger, Founder and Honorary Chairman, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
Laurence Lau, Chairman, CIC International (HongKong) Co., Ltd.
- More about the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
- More about previous Commission workshops and meetings