On September 25, 2018, the Center for China Studies held a regular lecture on the topic “Zone Infrastructure: China's New Urban Paradigm and Export Products”. The lecture was given by Professor Tim Oaks, Professor of the Department of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Oaks is a cultural geographer for China, working on issues related to regional cultural development, cultural industries, tourism, heritage, regional and local identities.
During the lecture, Professor Oaks narrated that the term “Ancient Silk Road” was coined in 1877 by the German geographer Richthofen as part of the colonial policy of the German Empire, with the aim of laying major railway routes throughout China. He noted that in the course of history the term “Silk Road” has always been abstract, created for ideological inspiration. Professor Oaks believes that the pragmatism of the development of the “Chinese model” is mainly due to a less centralized set of local practices than the large strategy of Beijing. BRI tries to add some “idealism of development” to this set, but does not do it particularly well.
China is increasingly exporting its model of special zones outside the country. Guian is a new district created by the state Council in 2014 in the rural district of Guian, the capital of Guizhou province. Guian is committed to making Guizhou China's new big data center. According to the plan, Guian is designed to integrate the city and the village; and to create equality between the city and the village: it is a kind of “separate but equal” approach, which at the same time still emphasizes that “the city is a city” and “the village is a village”. One of the functions is to occupy the “decorated” villages and make them part of the service infrastructure of the New district: the villagers will become providers of leisure for the middle class.
Guian is cited as an example of “infrastructure space”, a new kind of “operating system” for the formation of a new city. In Guian, we see an experiment in a new kind of export product: an infrastructure city. A special zone has become a form of “idealism of development” : a new type of post-urban “created city” (in a new place, in compliance with a strict plan, without chaotic growth and powerful infrastructure) that solves the existing problems of urbanization.
Like the idea of the “Silk road”, which BRI is trying to revive, the zone is “ideological”. Oaks considers such zone perfect infrastructure for BRI. A zone, as an infrastructure, is a complex system that needs to be understood not as a space, but as a ground infrastructure. This infrastructure gets hacked, is contingent, and produces outcomes that are unexpected. Guian has different meanings for different people, but it is important that it is a local project formed by specific local geography and conditions.
On September 24, 2018, the Center for China Studies held a second lecture on topic “China's growth performance and prospects”. The lecture was conducted by Dr. Shahid Yusuf, the chief economist of “Dialogue on growth”, School of business at the University of J. Washington, Washington, DC, USA. Dr. Yusuf has worked at the World Bank, he has published widely in academic journals, and is the author and editor of 27 books on industrial and urban development, innovation systems and higher education.
The lecturer spoke about China's achievements in recent decades: the GDP growth rate in the period from 1978 to 2017 was unprecedented 9.5% per year. Currently, China is a country with above-average income, GDP per capita is $ 8,700. The level of poverty in the country has been significantly reduced over the past 20 years. Thus, by 2017, only 3% of the population was below the poverty line. Today, 1.34 million millionaires and 819 billionaires live in the country. By 2014, the volume of China's exports topped $2.26 trillion, which accounted for 13% of world exports. China is actively investing domestically and in foreign markets, and is the second largest investor in the world in terms of investment in other countries ($170-180 billion). The level of urbanization in the country is growing rapidly and the aerospace industry is actively developing. GVA in the manufacturing industry grew from $893 billion to $2573 billion for 2006-2015.
The Professor outlined the main goals of China: to keep an average GDP growth of 6.5% per year, to achieve GDP growth by 2020 of double per capita, to accelerate technological progress and innovation in 10 industrial sectors, which account for about 40% of the country's GDP.
The growth of China's economy was mainly due to large investments in industry and its diversification, the products of which became very popular in domestic and foreign markets. Industry was the driver of growth and the main source for productivity increase.
After the financial crisis in 2008, when China's economy weakened significantly, about $4 trillion was allocated, most of which were aimed at the development of infrastructure and real estate. Structural changes took place in the country's economy: the share of production decreased, and services increased in the structure of the country's GDP, the number of working population began to decline. Innovation was frozen due to the high share of state-owned enterprises in the industry.
According to forecasts of the World Bank, the OECD, the IMF China's economic growth will slow down in near future.