Yukon Huang, the China economy contrarian

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2018

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yukon Huang thinks that China’s economy is extremely unconventional. Unsurprisingly, then, that nearly all the conventional economic wisdom we hear about this economy — particularly the two hugely popular poles of opinion that treat it as either an unstoppable force or a crisis-in-waiting — is wrong. So goes the contrarian take of the former World Bank Director for China and Russia, who is now Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Huang detailed his thoughts on China’s economy is his most recent book, Cracking the China Conundrum: Why Conventional Economic Wisdom Is Wrong. http://supchina.com/2017/10/24/cracking-the-china-conundrum-makes-bold-claims/ He sat down with Jeremy and Kaiser at SupChina’s NEXT CHINA Conference on January 17, and in this live podcast, answered provocative questions and defended surprising statements: "Why is it that people think China's unbalanced growth is a risk, when it actually is a positive development?" "Why do people think [China] has a debt problem, when actually it's a sign of financial deepening?" "Why is it that corruption is seen as an impediment to growth, when in China actually it's been a booster to growth?" "We assume that the more innovative you are as a country, the faster you grow, when actually it's the opposite." Recommendations: Jeremy: The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, a fantastic collection of essays by scholars at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi. And radiooooo.com, a site you should definitely check out if you are a music lover. Yukon: The recent movie Hidden Figures, about black women mathematicians who worked for NASA in the 1960s. Kaiser: A two-part documentary on Channel NewsAsia called China on Film, a collection of the earliest footage ever shot in China, dating back to the last years of the Qing Dynasty. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to this special live edition of the Cynica podcast coming here today from SubChina's Next China Conference here in New York.
0:15.7	Let's hear you folks make a little noise. Little Noise.
0:27.8	The Cynica podcast is produced in partnership with SubChina.
0:31.6	SubChina is the best way to stay on top of the most important news from China through our free email newsletter, our handy smartphone app, and, of course, at the website at
0:36.1	suprchina.com.
0:37.1	It's a feast of business, political,
0:39.3	and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world. I'm Kaiser Guo, joined here in New York
0:44.6	by SubChina's editor-in-chief Jeremy Goldcorn. Any Junumi fans in the house?
0:53.5	That required a little too much encouragement from Pfizer.
0:57.2	But thank you. I appreciate it.
1:00.2	We are honored to be joined at the end of this terrific day by Yukon Huang.
1:04.5	Yukon is Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
1:08.8	He was country director at the World Bank from 1997 to 2004.
1:12.8	His most recent book is Cracking the China Conundrum,
1:16.6	why conventional economic wisdom is wrong.
1:19.7	It's an insightful but very controversial take on what it is
1:23.7	that makes thinking on China, whether outside of China or inside,
1:27.4	or whether on its politics or on its economy whether outside of China or inside, or whether on its
1:28.3	politics or on its economy, so maddeningly binary and, as he claims, so fundamentally
1:34.3	incorrect. So Yukon, welcome to Sinica, and thanks so much for joining us at the conference
1:38.8	today. Happy to be here.
1:40.9	Yukon, I'm sure for you to have decided finally to write a book for a popular audience,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kaiser Kuo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kaiser Kuo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.