Peking University, Apr. 25, 2014: An Inaugural Meeting hosted on April 20-21 by Peking University (PKU) ushered in the International Consortium of Chinese Studies (ICCS).

The foundation of the ICCS was proposed by the National School of Development (NSD) at PKU, with the aim to enhance the academic communication and information exchange among global Chinese-study institutions. The Consortium focuses on social sciences, including economics, politics, sociology, law and international relations.

Group photo of the meeting

Planned as this year, the ICCS members gather in China in even years. The other annual meetings would be put on abroad, such as the next one at the University of Oxford in 2015.

This time, the two-day Inaugural Meeting was divided into eight sessions on the topics of Industrial Policy, Governance, Human Capital and Inequality, Financial Policy, Political Economy, Social Changes, and Perspectives of China Studies. Each session involved at least three presenters from China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia and the United States.

At the welcome ceremony, PKU Professor Wang Enge expressed his congratulation.

“During the past two or three decades, China’s economy has gone through an earthshaking change and become the second largest around the world,” Wang predicted that future changes in this country will have a direct influence on global economy.

In Wang’s eyes, the traditional theories, mostly based on experiences from Western countries, are no longer fully reliable guides to China or other modern developing countries.

The NSD, dedicated to the practices of China for decades, is supposed by Wang to grab the chance of the ICCS’s establishment, in order to collaborate with other members and promote related researches.

Justin Yifu Lin, honorary dean of the NSD, addressed on his theory of “modern structural economics” as the opening speaker. He gave specific suggestions on how to support industries with a country’s comparative advantages, which will result in economic growth, fast and sustainable.

Justin Yifu Lin (1st from the right) lectures.

Background Info: member list of the ICCS

21st Century China Program, School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, the University of California at San Diego

Institute of Social Science Contemporary China Research Base, the University of Tokyo

Faculty of Arts, Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne 

School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, the University of Nottingham

Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University

Stockholm China Economic Research Institute

Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, the University of Melbourne

Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University

Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Oxford Chinese Economy Programme at St Edmund Hall, the University of Oxford

GIGA Institute of Asian Studies

Universities Service Centre for China Studies

Written by: Yan Shengnan
Edited by: Arthars
Source: National School of Development