Ligang Song
Ligang Song is director of the China Economy Program, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5700-2352
China: Regaining Growth Momentum after the Pandemic »
Edited by: Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou
Publication date: December 2024
The slower growth of the Chinese economy in the aftermath of the pandemic has prompted the Chinese Government to adopt measures to boost domestic consumption and deepen structural reform, with the effectiveness of such policies beginning to be felt. However, China still faces challenges that will affect its growth dynamics down the track. These include the slowdown of its real estate sector, the complex internal and external environments for macroeconomic policy, the high level of income inequality, weak growth in investment by the private sector, negative population growth, high levels of debt, deglobalisation, weakness in the financial sector and equity markets, the inadequacy of its fiscal system and the imperative to decarbonise the economy. China must confront these challenges to maintain growth momentum and achieve higher levels of income and living standards.
The theme of the 2024 China Update book is China: Regaining Growth Momentum after the Pandemic. It discusses some of the challenges and policy issues that are being watched with keen interest by decision-makers and markets alike, including: What are the obstacles to economic growth in the aftermath of the pandemic and how can these be overcome? What are the key challenges and opportunities for China to move to the next level of development against the backdrop of negative population growth? Is it time for a Tax-Sharing System Reform 2.0 to consolidate China’s fiscal position? What are the challenges facing China’s small and medium enterprises? How is China’s business environment faring, and what are the implications for investment? How does China’s urban housing affordability impact its low fertility rate? How will the trade conflict between China and the United States play out regarding semiconductors and other high-tech products? How does China–Africa bilateral agricultural trade impact on African rural transformation?
China’s Transition to a New Phase of Development »
Edited by: Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou
Publication date: November 2022
The Chinese economy is currently undergoing fundamental changes. In this context, the 2022 China Update examines the key characteristics of China’s transition towards a new phase of economic growth and development. This year’s update book covers a range of diverse topics that reflect the complex and changing nature of the economy. It explores critical questions: Why does China need a new development paradigm, and what is the best way to achieve it? What are China’s choices when faced with the restructuring of global industrial value chains? What key roles will domestic consumption play in the next phase of China’s development? What does the digital transformation mean for the Chinese economy? What has been the domestic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on income inequality and labour market outcomes? What pathways exist for China in its transition towards carbon neutrality? How does China’s emissions-trading market compare with that of Europe? How will China’s carbon neutrality strategy affect the Australian economy? What are the political factors influencing bilateral trade flows between China and its trading partners? And what is at stake for China–US relations?
China’s Challenges in Moving towards a High-income Economy »
Edited by: Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou
Publication date: September 2021
With its per capita income surpassing US$10,000, China has now drawn up ambitious plans to further lift its income to the level of developed countries. Yet various constraints need to be overcome if China is to build on the achievements of the last 40 years and further boost its growth potential. Besides these constraints, the year 2020 saw human societies hit heavily by the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economy caught off guard and dipped into recessions caused by lockdown measures for controlling the spread of the pandemic. Nations around the world have experienced grave loss of human life and lockdown measures have knocked economies from their normal growth trajectories. Even as the pandemic continues to unfold, all signs point to China as being the first major economy to have emerged out of the crisis. But many questions remain. Has the Chinese economy emerged from the pandemic crisis relatively unscathed? What are the long-term prospects for its economy? This year’s Update book, China’s Challenges in Moving towards a High-income Economy, explores the challenges faced by the Chinese economy in the transition towards a high-income economy, including agricultural development, finance and fiscal system reform, RMB internationalisation, trends in urbanisation, as well as topics related to innovation, corporate sector development and market competition. China’s growth experience has been full of exciting changes and important lessons for reform and structural changes, and this year’s China Update is again the way to gain insights into these.
The Chinese Economic Transformation »
Views from Young Economists
Edited by: Ligang Song, Yixiao Zhou, Luke Hurst
Publication date: July 2019
The Chinese Economic Transformation, the 19th volume in the China Update book series, provides an opportunity for young economists to share their views on various issues relating to the Chinese economic transformation. More than half of the contributors to this book are female scholars. Some of the contributors are rising stars in the studies of the Chinese economy and economic transition, and some only recently received their PhDs and are on their way to establishing themselves in the field of China studies. But they have one thing in common: to passionately observe, study and research what is going on in the Chinese economic transformation during the reform period; and, by so doing, make contributions to the policy debates on, and general understanding of, the Chinese economy.
The chapters in this volume include an in-depth probe into challenges in capital and credit allocation due to financial friction and policy distortions; investigating the causes of growth slow-down in China and suitable policy responses; the evolution of the household registration system and its impact on off-farm employment and the integration of rural and urban labour markets; the growth, scale and characteristics of nonstandard employment; the development of rural e-commerce and its economic impact; innovation performance of listed enterprises in China; financial services liberalisation and its impact on firms’ performance; financing support schemes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the effect on banks’ credit allocation to SMEs; the potential costs of US–China trade conflict and ways to mitigate them; gender income gap in China’s labour market; causes of blockage of Chinese overseas direct investment and strategies to reduce the probability of encountering obstacles; and the role of state capital in the iron ore boom in Australia.
The great variety of topics in this year’s Update allows readers to understand the current shape of the Chinese economy and to think deeply about policies and necessary reforms for future growth and development.
China’s 40 Years of Reform and Development: 1978–2018 »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, Cai Fang
Publication date: July 2018
The year 2018 marks 40 years of reform and development in China (1978–2018). This commemorative book assembles some of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Chinese economy to reflect on what has been achieved as a result of the economic reform programs, and to draw out the key lessons that have been learned by the model of growth and development in China over the preceding four decades. This book explores what has happened in the transformation of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years for China itself, as well as for the rest of the world, and discusses the implications of what will happen next in the context of China’s new reform agenda. Focusing on the long-term development strategy amid various old and new challenges that face the economy, this book sets the scene for what the world can expect in China’s fifth decade of reform and development.
A key feature of this book is its comprehensive coverage of the key issues involved in China’s economic reform and development. Included are discussions of China’s 40 years of reform and development in a global perspective; the political economy of economic transformation; the progress of marketisation and changes in market-compatible institutions; the reform program for state-owned enterprises; the financial sector and fiscal system reform, and its foreign exchange system reform; the progress and challenges in economic rebalancing; and the continuing process of China’s global integration. This book further documents and analyses the development experiences including China’s large scale of migration and urbanisation, the demographic structural changes, the private sector development, income distribution, land reform and regional development, agricultural development, and energy and climate change policies.
China's New Sources of Economic Growth: Vol. 2 »
Human Capital, Innovation and Technological Change
Edited by: Ligang Song, Ross Garnaut, Cai Fang, Lauren Johnston
Publication date: July 2017
China’s efforts in searching for new sources of growth are increasingly pressing given the persistence of the growth slowdown in recent years. This year’s book elucidates key present macroeconomic challenges facing China’s economy in 2017, and the impacts and readiness of human capital, innovation and technological change in affecting the development of China’s economy. The book explores the development of human capital as the foundations of China’s push into more advanced growth frontiers. It also explores the progress of productivity improvement in becoming the primary mechanism by which China can sustain economic growth, and explains the importance of China’s human capital investments to success on this front. The book demonstrates that technical change is a major contributor to productivity growth; and that invention and innovation are increasingly driving technical change but so far lumpily across regions, sectors and invention motivations. Included are chapters providing an update on reform and macroeconomic development, educational inequality, the role of intangibles in determining China’s economic growth, and China’s progress in transitioning towards being an innovative country. The book also covers the regional dimension of innovation and technological progress by sector: in agricultural productivity, renewable energy and financial markets. Chapters on trade, investment, regional cooperation and foreign aid explore further the mechanisms through which technological change and innovative activities are emerging locally and internationally.
China's New Sources of Economic Growth: Vol. 1 »
Reform, Resources and Climate Change
Edited by: Ligang Song, Ross Garnaut, Cai Fang, Lauren Johnston
Publication date: July 2016
China’s change to a new model of growth, now called the ‘new normal’, was always going to be hard. Events over the past year show how hard it is. The attempts to moderate the extremes of high investment and low consumption, the correction of overcapacity in the heavy industries that were the mainstays of the old model of growth, the hauling in of the immense debt hangover from the fiscal and monetary expansion that pulled China out of the Great Crash of 2008 would all have been hard at any time. They are harder when changes in economic policy and structure coincide with stagnation in global trade and rising protectionist sentiment in developed countries, extraordinarily rapid demographic change and recognition of the urgency of easing the environmental damage from the old model. China’s economy has slowed and there are worries that the authorities will not be able to contain the slowdown within preferred limits. This year’s Update explores the challenge of the slowdown in growth and the change in economic structure. Leading experts on China’s economy and environment review change within China’s new model of growth, and its interaction with ageing, environmental pressure, new patterns of urbanisation, and debt problems at different levels of government. It illuminates some new developments in China’s economy, including the transformational potential of internet banking, and the dynamics of financial market instability. China’s economic development since 1978 is full of exciting change, and this year’s China Update is again the way to know it as it is happening
China's Domestic Transformation in a Global Context »
Edited by: Ligang Song, Ross Garnaut, Cai Fang, Lauren Johnston
Publication date: July 2015
The phrase ‘New Normal’ captures the ongoing shift in the pattern and drivers of China’s economic growth. China’s new growth rate is both slower and imposing difficult structural change. These new economic conditions are challenging yet offer opportunities for China and its economic partners. Reforms must be deepened but also make growth more inclusive and environmentally sustainable, over this decade and beyond.
This year’s Update offers both global context and domestic insight into this challenging new phase of China’s domestic economic transformation. How are policymakers elevating migrant workers concurrent with increasing consumption? Is China’s government spending enough on education and R&D to ensure it can achieve its aspirations to ascend the global manufacturing value chain and avoid the middle-income trap? Are energy market reforms reducing or increasing the price of gas and electricity in China? What are the consequences of China’s financial reforms and expanding Renminbi trading for foreign banks? What does China’s new growth model mean for the international resources economy and for Africa? Do SOEs face market conditions and are they dominating China’s fast-rising outbound investment? What is China’s strategy for navigating fragmented international trade policy negotiations?
Deepening Reform for China's Long-term Growth and Development »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Cai Fang, Ligang Song
Publication date: July 2014
The Chinese economy has entered a new phase of development in which sources of growth are not so much dependent upon pure increases in labour, investment and credit expansion, but from productivity improvement, structural changes, technological progress and the benefits from improvement of the social security and welfare improvement. When market functions are fully established to become a main channel for allocating resources, the entrepreneurship will flourish engaging in more innovative activities, workers will move more freely and have more incentives to improve their skills, firms will become more productive through market entry and exit, the economic structure will become more balanced because of the improved resource allocation, and in the end, growth will become more spontaneous and sustainable. In this sense, reforms could deliver ‘dividend’ by raising China’s potential economic growth rates.
For China to confront all the challenges it faces at present, the reforms undertaken now have to be deep, comprehensive and far-reaching in order to succeed in paving the way for China to complete the task of transformation in the long-term. There is no better alternative than deepening the market-oriented reform in advancing the course of China’s modernisation for future development and prosperity and lifting China to the status of a developed economy in the next two decades. The recent China update books have covered the topic of reform from different angles and this new book is another attempt to address this important issue.
China: A New Model for Growth and Development »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Cai Fang, Ligang Song
Publication date: July 2013
The Chinese economy is undergoing profound change in policy and structure. The change is necessary to increase the value of growth to the Chinese community, and to sustain growth into the future. The changes are so comprehensive and profound that they represent a new model of Chinese economic growth. This book describes the replacement of an old uninhibited investment expansion model of growth, by transition to modern economic growth and provides insights into recent changes and where they are likely to lead. These include requirements for building the new institutions including its public finances for future growth, adjustments in its savings, industry and agriculture, changes in its demographic structure, business environment, and pattern of rural-urban migration, prospects for ‘green growth’, its energy policy trilemma and the climate change mitigation strategy, and changes for China’s interaction with the international economy through its overseas investment and trade in high tech products. China’s adoption of a new model of economic growth is of immense importance to people in China and everywhere. This book is an early attempt to take a close look at many of the features of the new model.
APEC and liberalisation of the Chinese economy »
Edited by: Peter Drysdale, Zhang Yunling, Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2012
“China is so large that its trading interests and influence are global. But its interests are disproportionately powerful in its immediate Western Pacific and Asia Pacific partners. The evolution of China’s economic relationships with its Asia Pacific partners, in which APEC came to play a significant role in the 1990s, is thus a central part of the story of China’s rapidly growing and changing interaction with the global economy.”
- Ross Garnaut
APEC is an important forum through which China can demonstrate its commitment to economic openness. APEC has also been an important vehicle for China’s trade liberalisation on the way towards accession to the WTO.
In facilitating trade liberalisation, APEC and the WTO are mutually reinforcing. APEC prepares China for the WTO and WTO accession encourages China’s active participation in the APEC process. Both APEC membership and WTO accession help with the huge task of China’s domestic reform.
This book sets out China’s strategic interests in APEC in the lead-up to the APEC summit in Shanghai in 2001. Contributors include leading Chinese economists from the APEC Policy Research Centre in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences–Zhang Yunling, Zhang Jianjun, Sun Xuegong, Li Kai, Chen Luzhi, Zhou Xiaobing, Zhao Jianglin–and from the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management at The Australian National University–Peter Drysdale, Ligang Song, Ross Garnaut, Christopher Findlay, Andrew Elek, Yongzheng Yang, Yiping Huang, K.P. Kalirajan, Hadi Soesastro and Chen Chunlai.
This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print.
China 2002 »
WTO entry and world recession
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2012
In 2002 China enters the WTO. Long awaited by the world’s trading economies, it now comes in a year of global recession. What effect will China’s entry into the WTO have at a difficult time? The rapid expansion of China’s trade has required large adjustment in its trading partners, and the expansion and adjustment will accelerate with WTO entry. The internal adjustment pressures in China from WTO entry are also immense.
Recently dubbed Australia’s Ambassador to the region by Rowan Callick of the Financial Review, Ross Garnaut was Australia’s ambassador to China through an earlier exciting period when China took its first major steps towards opening to international trade and investment. He was instrumental in the development of China’s thinking about the WTO.
Ross Garnaut is Chairman of the China Economy and Business Program at The Australian National University. Australian members of the Program and their associates gather each year for the China Update.
Ligang Song is leading authority on the internationalisation of the Chinese economy and on the development of the private sector in China. He has worked at Peking University and People’s University in Beijing and at the International University in Tokyo.
This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print.
China: New Engine of World Growth »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2012
Twenty-five years of reform have transformed China from a centrally planned and closed system to a predominantly market-driven and open economy. As a consequence, China is emerging as the new powerhouse for the world economy. China: new engine for world growth discusses the impact and significance of this transformation. It points out risks to the growth process and unfinished tasks of reform. It presents conclusions from recent research on growth, trade and investment, the financial sector, income and regional disparities, industrial location and private sector development.
This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print.
China: Twenty Years of Economic Reform »
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2012
China: Twenty Years of Reform outlines the experiences of China over the past two decades. It highlights the processes of reform, successes achieved, and problems faced during the economic transition.
“China, and its relations with the international community, have been transformed. China’s economy has expanded five times, and its foreign trade by twelve. It has greatly increased consumption levels of what had been about half of the world’s people in poverty.”
- Ross Garnaut
“Tremendous progress has been made over the past twenty years, but much more needs to be done in setting up a more open, efficient and transparent trade system, in line with the requirements of the WTO.”
- Ligang Song
“Radical reform is neither in China’s tradition, nor is it an easy task. Given the difficulties of the reform task and the structure of the political economy, it will probably take a few more years for China to accomplish SOE reform and reforms in other areas.”
- Yiping Huang
“The most remarkable aspect of China’s agricultural reform was it’s “spillover” effect. Non-agricultural activities in rural China sprang up immediately after the reforms began—the gross output value of TVEs grew at 24 per cent per annum from 1978 to 1995 and employment grew at 9 per cent per annum.”
- Yongzheng Yang
This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print.
Dilemmas of China's growth in the Twenty-First Century »
Edited by: Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2012
Since economic reforms began in 1978, China has been a focal point for observing the effects of market liberalisation. China has not only truly become one of the ‘emerging giants’ in the world economy but also provided a successful example for transition from a centrally-planned to a market economy. Thus, there is a keen interest about what lies ahead for such a significant economic player. Dilemmas of China’s Growth in the Twenty-First Century is a comprehensive treatment of China’s economic achievements to date and prospects for the twenty-first century. Covering topics as diverse as economic stability and growth sustainability, WTO membership and its implications, income disparity, agricultural policy, trade and investment prospects, Dilemmas of China’s Growth in the Twenty-First Century is a powerful work and essential guide to the latest trends and prospects for the Chinese economy.
This work, originally published by Asia Pacific Press, is reproduced here in the interests of maintaining open access to high-quality academic works no longer in print.
Private Enterprise in China »
Authored by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, Yang Yao, Xiaolu Wang
Publication date: December 2012
The Chinese economy is currently undergoing a profound institutional transformation—a quiet revolution. In a regulated environment geared to the requirements of state-owned enterprises, the successs of the private sector as the main focus for economic growth is remarkable. State-owned enterprises are currently being restructured based on market conditions in which private firms are now permitted to play an important role. Fascinated by the implications of this reform within the Chinese economy, the Asia-Pacific School of Economics and Management of The Australian National University, in conjunction with the China Center for Economic Research of Peking University research team, conducted a large sample survey. Four study sites were chosen: Beijing, Chengdu, Shunde and Wenzhou. Leading economists analyse the nature and dynamics of private sector reform within the Chinese economy and make recommendations for policy which support opportunities for growth and investment.
Rebalancing and Sustaining Growth in China »
Edited by: Huw Mckay, Ligang Song
Publication date: July 2012
The idea that China’s economy needs to rebalance is no longer controversial inside or outside the country. Whether it be the increasing recognition of income inequality at home; the still large external surplus; the focus on consumption and industrial upgrading in the policy discourse; the economic, political and social tensions associated with the major decline in housing affordability; the profound conflict between industrialisation, urbanisation and the biosphere; the profitability gulf between the top SOEs and private firms; or the uni-directional pressures pushing on the real exchange rate; the evidence in favour of a highly imbalanced structure is omnipresent.
Rebalancing and Sustaining Growth in China brings together some of the world’s leading observers of the Chinese economy to debate the multifarious questions pertaining to rebalancing. How are we to make sense of the many, often contradictory, proposals that seek the same ultimate objective of a more sustainable growth model? What mix of policies will be most effective in addressing the required structural change without sacrificing prosperity along the way? Where should we look for root causes, and how can we avoid getting distracted by symptoms? How do China’s unique internal migration dynamics – and the Lewis turning point – constrain its options? What role will and should financial, fiscal and welfare reform play in the process? Where do water and energy security fit in? Can China innovate before it gets old – or can China get smart before it gets rich? And are intergenerational issues being taken into account?
Rising China: Global Challenges and Opportunities (Chinese version) »
崛起的中国：全球机遇与挑战（预售）
Edited by: Jane Golley, Ligang Song
Publication date: May 2012
“中国经济前沿”丛书致力于对中国经济发展中的热点问题提供最新的研究成果与解读视角，作者均为国内外相关研究领域最具权威或居于研究前沿的学者。收录的论文无论在理论研究还是实证分析方面，都具有相当高的水准。本书集中于全球金融危机对中国的影响，分别从经济、地缘政治和环境气候变化视角解读世界和中国未来的发展走势。
Chinese print version of this book is available from Social Science and Academic Press
China: The Next Twenty Years of Reform and Development (Chinese version) »
中国：未来二十年的改革与发展
Publication date: June 2011
过去30年，中国在经济改革和对外开放方面取得了巨大成就，从而成为世界上举足轻重的一个经济体。不过，在改革与发展的进程中，仍然存在许多没有解决的问题，也会面临诸多新的挑战。本书旨在关注以下问题：中国如何深化要素市场等颇具争议的领域的改革；如何改革汇率体制和医疗卫生体系，同时，这些改革需要有强有力且高效的配套政策措施，中国才可能应对一系列挑战。这些挑战包括：如何应对劳动力无限供给时代的结束；如何在减少全球贸易失衡中担当建设性的角色；如何提高企业的创新能力；如何应归史无前例的移民、城市化和社会不平等问题；以及如何在低碳发展成为唯一路径的条件下，解决能源和金属使用量增长带来的排放问题。
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Chinese print version of this book is available from Social Science and Academic Press
Rising China: Global Challenges and Opportunities »
Edited by: Jane Golley, Ligang Song
Publication date: June 2011
Where the last three decades of the 20th century witnessed a China rising on to the global economic stage, the first three decades of the 21st century are almost certain to bring with them the completion of that rise, not only in economic, but also political and geopolitical terms. China’s integration into the global economy has brought one-fifth of the global population into the world trading system, which has increased global market potential and integration to an unprecedented level. The increased scale and depth of international specialisation propelled by an enlarged world market has offered new opportunities to boost world production, trade and consumption; with the potential for increasing the welfare of all the countries involved.
However, China’s integration into the global economy has forced a worldwide reallocation of economic activities. This has increased various kinds of friction in China’s trading and political relations with others, as well as generating several globally significant externalities. Finding ways to accommodate China’s rise in a way that ensures the future stability and prosperity of the world economy and polity is probably the most important task facing the world community in the first half of the 21st century. The book delves into these issues to reflect upon the wide range of opportunities and challenges that have emerged in the context of a rising China.
Chinese translation
China: The Next Twenty Years of Reform and Development »
Publication date: July 2010
China has made some remarkable achievements during the first three decades of economic reform and opening up, rising to become one of the world’s most dynamic and globally-integrated market economies. Yet there remains much unfinished business on the reform and development agenda, coupled with newly emerging challenges. China: The Next Twenty Years of Reform and Development highlights how the deepening of reforms in critical areas such as domestic factor markets, the exchange rate regime and the health system, combined with the strengthening of channels for effective policy implementation, will enable China to cope with the challenges that lie ahead. These include responding to the pending exhaustion of the unlimited supply of labour; playing a constructive role in reducing global trade imbalances; enhancing firms’ ability to innovate; coping with migration, urbanisation and rising inequalities on scales unknown in world history; and dealing with rising energy and metal demand in an era in which low-carbon growth has become a necessity rather than a choice.
Chinese translation
China's New Place in a World in Crisis (Chinese version) »
全球金融危机下的中国：经济、地缘政治和环境的视角
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, Wing Thye Woo
Publication date: June 2010
2008年的金融危机，使全球状况和中国的世界地位都发生了改变。这场危机加速了中国作为一个有影响力的大国的崛起。本书将对下列问题进行深入探讨：此次全球危机会对中国的增长前景长造成怎样的影响？这场危机的演化和中国的应对举措，会对中国的工业化、城市化进程以及国有企业改革等问题施加何种影响？国际社会将如何应对迅速出现的国际新秩序？中国和其他主要发展中国家将在国际社会中担当怎样的新角色？中国和世界能否打破经济增长和破坏环境的宿命，尤其是如 何解决气候变化问题？
Chinese print version of this book is available from Social Science and Academic Press
China's New Place in a World in Crisis »
Economic, Geopolitical and Environmental Dimensions
Edited by: Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, Wing Thye Woo
Publication date: July 2009
The world and China’s place in it have been transformed over the past year. The pressures for change have come from the most severe global financial crisis ever. The crisis has accelerated China’s emergence as a great power. But China and its global partners have yet to think or work through the consequences of its new position for the governance of world affairs. China’s New Place in a World in Crisis discusses and provides in-depth analysis of the following questions. How have China’s growth prospects been affected by the global crisis? How will the crisis and China’s response to it impact China’s major domestic issues, such as industrialisation, urbanisation and the reform of the state-owned sector of the economy? How will the crisis and the international community’s response to it affect the rapidly emerging new international order? What will be China’s, and other major developing countries’, new role? Can China and the world find a way of breaking the nexus between economic growth and environmental sustainability — especially on the issue of climate change?
China's Dilemma »
Economic Growth, the Environment and Climate Change
Edited by: Ligang Song, Wing Thye Woo
Publication date: July 2008
China’s Dilemma—Economic Growth, the Environment and Climate Change examines the challenges China will have to confront in order to maintain rapid growth while coping with the global financial turbulence, some rising socially destabilising tensions such as income inequality, an over-exploited environment and the long-term pressures of global warming.
China’s Dilemma discusses key questions that will have an impact on China’s growth path and offers some in-depth analyses as to how China could confront these challenges. The authors address the effect of the global credit crunch and financial shocks on China’s economic growth; China’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and emissions reduction schemes; the environmental consequences of foreign direct investment in China; the relationship between air pollution and mortality; the effect of climate change on agricultural output; the coal industry’s compliance with tougher regulations; and the constraints water shortages may impose on China’s economy. It also emphasises the importance of managing the rising demand for energy to moderate oil price increases and placating domestic and international concerns about global warming.
In the thirty years since China started on the path of reform, it has emerged as one of the largest and most dynamic economies in the world. This carries with it the responsibility to balance the requirements of key industries that are driving its development with the need to ensure that its growth is both equitable and sustainable. China’s Dilemma highlights key lessons learned from the past thirty years of reform in order to pave the way for balanced and sustained growth in the future.
Japan's Future in East Asia and the Pacific »
Edited by: Mari Pangestu, Ligang Song
Publication date: December 2007
Japan’s Future in East Asia and the Pacific takes a ’big-picture‘ approach to Japan’s economic place in East Asia alongside that of China. It analyses Japan’s successes and experiments in trade policy as well as its failures in macro-economic policy. Japan’s diplomatic and economic integration strategies are also examined for their impact on East Asia and on Australia. The collection assesses China’s growth and dynamism and questions the nature of the competition for economic influence between Japan and China.
Contributors to Japan’s Future in East Asia and the Pacific are all graduates of The Australian National University who are making their mark in the region as scholars and economists on East Asian and Pacific affairs.