Market Reforms in
the New Millennium
A
Cato Institute Conference Cosponsored with Fudan
University
Shanghai, June 15-18, 1997
China's daring experiment with markets and prices, which began in 1978, has propelled China into the top 10 trading nations in the world. Great progress has been made, but great challenges remain. At midnight on June 30, 1997, Hong Kong will revert to Chinese control, and later that year the 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will meet to plot out its vision of the future.
"Peace and widely shared prosperity are the ultimate prizes of the worldwide use of voluntary cooperation as the major means of organizing economic activity."
—from Milton Friedman's address at Cato's 1988 Shanghai Conference
Hong Kong is the world's freest economy; China is the world's fastest growing economy. When the two join forces, China could well become the largest and most dynamic economy in the 21st century. The fate of China's 1.2 billion people will be tied to China's future as a global economic power and how that power is used.To examine that future and to consider how economic reform may affect social development in China, the Cato Institute in conjunction with the Center for American Studies at Fudan University will bring together more than 30 international experts. Six sessions over three days will take place at the beautiful Shanghai Hilton, which is near the site of the original French Club and close to all of Shanghai's cultural attractions. In addition, a unique Open Forum will be held at Fudan University.
Speakers include Wu Jie, Vice Minister of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic System; William Overholt, Managing Director of Bankers Trust in Hong Kong, Justin Yifu Lin and Fan Gang, two of China's most distinguished young economists; William McGurn, Deputy Editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review; Jose Piñerá, former Minister of Labor and Social Security in Chile; Kate Xiao Zhou and Minxin Pei, experts on how economic liberalization has affected China's civil society; as well as China scholars Nicholas Lardy, Y. C. Richard Wong, and Barry Naughton.
