Speaker Biographies

Saturday Economics Panel:
“China’s Future in the Age of Globalization”

Ted C. Fishman
Freelance Journalist and Author of Bestselling Book China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World (Confirmed)

Ted C. Fishman is a freelance journalist and the author of the bestselling book China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World. His essays and reports have appeared in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, Money, Esquire, USA Today and GQ. He has also been featured on news programs such as ABC, CNN, Fox, BBC, Sky News (UK), and National Public Radio. Mr. Fishman’s bestselling book China, Inc. describes the effects of China’s momentous economic, political, and social changes on lives and businesses in China and the rest of the world. Mr. Fishman is a graduate of Princeton University. He was previously a floor trader and a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, running his own trading firm until 1992. An accomplished public speaker, he is frequently called on to discuss adapting to China’s economic rise with local, state and federal officials. Mr. Fishman currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Professor Zhang Jun
Professor of Economics and Director of the China Center for Economics, Fudan University, Shanghai (Confirmed)

Zhang Jun is currently a Professor of Economics and the Director of the China Center for Economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He is also Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of World Economic Forum, which is published bimonthly by Fudan University. His research interests include Chinese economic reforms, industrial economics, and transitional and institutional economics. He obtained his Ph.D. at Fudan University in Shanghai, China in 1992. He then went to the University of Sussex in England to follow up on his post-doctoral research. Professor Zhang has also held visiting professorships at the Yenching Institute at Harvard University, Washington State University, the University of London, and Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan. He has published more than fifteen books in Chinese and over ninety articles in scholarly journals. In his recent article “Structural Imbalances,” Professor Zhang describes the implications of Chinese economic expansion on the world economy and for China. China’s tremendous export industry “suggests a need for the global trading system to make more room for rising China (if not including India &). But at the same time we must bear in mind that China has enormous inner structural issues to overcome before making such export-led growth really sustainable.” Professor Zhang resides in Shanghai, China.

Professor Wang Hui
Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Author of China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition (Confirmed)

Wang Hui is currently a Research Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He is the editor of Du Shu, the most important intellectual journal in contemporary China. He was one of the first voices to publicly criticize China’s new economic boom and its embrace of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism, primarily considering that economic growth and development seem to have trumped concerns about social justice and political freedom. His views make him an energizing force behind a novel order of intellectuals in China known as the New Left, who hold the view that China should pay greater attention to priorities besides GDP growth. Professor Wang authored an insightful book considering the implications of China’s new economic boom titled China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition, which calls for a wide spectrum of reforms in China, including culture, values, and government. Professor Wang believes that China is “caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst of both systems.” He was an active participant in the Tiananmen Square movement, advocating economic and social justice as an antidote to the corruption caused by the extreme influx of market extremism. Professor Wang currently resides in Beijing, China.

Moderator
Professor Prasenjit Duara
Professor of History, Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Chicago (Confirmed)

Prasenjit Duara is a Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Civilizations as well as the Chair of the Department of History at the University of Chicago. His teaching and research interests include the social and cultural history of modern China, nationalism, imperialism, transnationalism, and post-structuralist theory. Professor Duara was born in Assam, India. He earned his Ph.D at Harvard University in 1983. He has written a number of books including Culture, Power and the State: Rural North China 1900-1942 (1988), winner of the American Historical Association’s Fairbank Prize and the Association for Asian Studies’ Levenson Prize; Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (1995); and Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (2003). The latter two books are concerned with understanding the phenomenon of nationalism in modern East Asia. Professor Duara is also the author of essays including “Rethinking American History in a Global Age” (2002) and “Reflections on Multiple Modernities” (2002). Professor Duara resides in Chicago, Illinois.