The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events

Wednesday, 20 February 2019, 19:00
Venue: Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg

Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften
Lecture

R. Bin Wong (University of California in Los Angeles)
»Chinese Political Economy in Historical Perspective: Changing Ways to ›Benefit the People‹«

The speaker
R. Bin Wong ist Professor of Economic History at the University of California in Los Angeles. He belongs to the »California School of History«. Among his most important publications are China Transformed (1997) and, with Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Before and Beyond Divergence. The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe (2011).

About the lecture (in English)
China’s contemporary domestic political challenges are often seen to be due to a divergence from Western political principles and practices. This view promotes a limited and incomplete view of Chinese political choices which are to a significant degree the product of earlier choices and their consequences, much in the same way that current political conditions in Europe and the U.S. are largely shaped by earlier choices and their consequences. For us to understand contemporary Chinese political challenges, historical perspectives on the present parallel to those we under-stand to be relevant in Europe and the U.S. will help us at least partially define the realm of both imaginable and desirable for Chinese leaders and their societies. This presentation examines con-temporary political challenges related to the ways in which Chinese leaders have envisioned their economy historically regarding the material welfare of their subjects according to the concept of »benefit the people« (li min 利). It provides an example of how to understand politics in today’s China and reasons for the country’s continuing political differences from those found in American and European politics.

The lecture is part of the research project »Chinese and European History of Economic Thought in Comparison«, conducted by Iwo Amelung (Professor of Sinology at Goethe University) and Bertram Schefold (Professor of Econmics at Goethe University) at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.

Registration
Please register in advance: info@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de.