China as a Global Economic Power
Procedings from June 18, 1997
(Click on links for more information)
The third day of the Cato Institute’s conference, “China as a Global Economic Power,” began with an address by Michael Ducker, senior vice president of the Asia Pacific Division of Federal Express. He told the crowd that if China were to continue its policies of liberalization, it could replace Japan as Asia’s principal center for freight transportation early next century.
The final panel of the conference, “Taxation, Regulation, and the Environment,” included Jerry Taylor’s speech, “Sustainable Development: An Agenda in Search of a Problem.” He advised China to abandon its obsession with the fashionable western notion of sustainable development. In the long run, “economic growth, not sustainable development, is the only policy that can produce a clean and healthy environment for China.” Also speaking on the panel was P. J. O’Rourke, H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute. (text of remarks) O’Rourke, filling in for Stephen Moore, who was unable to attend the conference because of sickness, told the crowd that life is not a zero-sum game. Under capitalism, if the rich get richer, the poor don’t necessarily have to get poorer. Indeed, the opposite is usually the case. “Egalitarianism is not only unnecessary,” O’Rourke remarked, “it is also sinful.”
Following the panel discussion, Liu Ji, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, discussed “Prospects of Reform in China’s Economic System.” He reported that the only people in China who still cling to the idea of central planning are “fossilized, dogmatic Marxists.” Nevertheless, he was wary of China adopting a completely free-market system, arguing instead that a system of “market socialism” is more desirable. James A. Dorn, vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute and conference organizer, thanked the participants, Fudan University, and the conference’s financial sponsors in his concluding remarks.
Links for June 18, 1997
Sustainable Development: An Agenda in Search of a Problem
Getting Over Equality by P.J. O'Rourke
