Slow Tech Dragon: A Balanced Assessment of China’s Economic Trajectory

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business are pleased to announce the Sixteenth Annual N. T. Wang Distinguished Lecture: “Slow Tech Dragon: A Balanced Assessment of China’s Economic Trajectory,” featuring Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and moderated by Thomas J. Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; Director, China and the World Program, Columbia University.

China is increasingly viewed as an emerging high-tech superpower yet is simultaneously portrayed as being on the verge of an economic crisis. Drawing on fieldwork and quantitative data, this presentation aims to explain how these conflicting assessments can be productively integrated into a unified picture of China’s current economic circumstances and potential futures. That picture has important implications for those doing business with China and for U.S. policymakers.

Speakers’ Bios:

Scott Kennedy is Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A leading authority on Chinese economy, he focuses on China’s innovation drive, Chinese industrial policy, U.S.-China relations, and global economic governance, among other topics.

Major publications include: Managing U.S.-China Tensions over the Global Economic Order: Tentative Proposals (CSIS, November 2024); U.S.-China Scholarly Recoupling: Advancing Mutual Understanding in an Era of Intense Rivalry (CSIS, March 2024); (with Wang Jisi) Breaking the Ice: The Role of Scholarly Exchange in Stabilizing U.S.-China Relations (CSIS, 2023); China’s Uneven High-Tech Drive: Implications for the United States (CSIS, 2020); Global Governance and China: The Dragon’s Learning Curve (Routledge, 2018); The Fat Tech Dragon: Benchmarking China’s Innovation Drive (CSIS, 2017); and The Business of Lobbying in China (Harvard University Press, 2005).

Kennedy hosts the China Field Notes podcast, which features voices from on the ground in China.

Thomas J. Christensen is Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University.  He arrived in 2018 from Princeton University where he was William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War, Director of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, and faculty director of the Masters of Public Policy Program and the Truman Scholars Program.   From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security.

Professor Christensen’s most recent book is Lost in the Cold War: The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW (Columbia Univ. Press, 2022).  His earlier book, The China Challenge:  Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (W.W. Norton), was an editors’ choice in the New York Times Book Review, a “Book of the Week” on CNN”s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and the Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medalist for 2016 at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Professor Christensen has also taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his B.A. with honors in History from Haverford College, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. He has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Committee for the Schwarzman Scholars Program. He is currently the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Nancy B. Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book Series on the United States in Asia at Columbia University Press.  Professor Christensen is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.

Schedule:

5:00-6:00 pm: Lecture in Cooperman Commons
6:00-7:00 pm: Reception in Alumni Suite

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, and cosponsored by the China and the World Program at Columbia University.