China and India: Ancient Civilizations, Rising Powers,
Giant Societies, and Contrasting Models of Development

A History Institute for Teachers

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Saturday and Sunday, March 19–20, 2011

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Sponsored by

The Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Wachman Center

Center for East Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania

South Asia Center, University of Pennsylvania

Penn Lauder CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research), University of Pennsylvania

China and India are homes to two of the great ancient civilizations and retain distinctive cultures to this day. Especially during the last two decades, both have achieved extraordinary economic growth. As two of the four “BRIC” members (the group of large emerging economies that also includes Brazil and Russia) and with China becoming the world’s third-largest economy and India more recently achieving growth on a scale and pace to rival China’s recent history, China and India have emerged as major actors in the world economy. Their sheer size and sharply increased material resources have made both countries rising and major powers in their often-troubled regions as well as potential adversaries with a modern history of tense relations (including over territorial disputes, Tibet policy and other matters) between themselves.

China and India have pursued significantly—but not entirely—different paths to their recent economic success, with common turns toward economic markets and international economic integration but with contrasting approaches to the roles of the state in the economy, political democracy, the rule of law, and other features of economies, societies and polities. The two states’ scale and economic success have made both “models” of development policy for other developing countries. The global economic crisis that began in 2008 has complicated the picture. It undermined the notion that large developing economies had “delinked” from the economic cycles and trends of the developed world. It also cast doubt on the continued viability of any growth strategy that significantly depends on manufactured exports to developed economies. At the same time, the Chinese and Indian economies fared comparatively well (at least during the early months of the crisis), and Beijing especially saw the crisis as validating an approach to economic development and international economic relations that diverged from recent American orthodoxy.

This History Institute for secondary school teachers will bring together leading academic experts in relevant fields—including China specialists and India specialists from the fields of history, cultural studies, economics, political science and international relations—to address these issues.

E-mail lux@fpri.org for more information.

Topics and Speakers

Welcoming Remarks
Walter McDougall, Co-Chair, History Institute for Teachers and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania
Audio and Video
Keynote: China, India, and the US: A Geopolitical Perspective
Robert Kaplan, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Audio and Video
Two Grand Civilizational Traditions: What Are They and How Do They Matter Today?
China: Evelyn Rawski, Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh
India: Daud Ali, Chair of the Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Audio and Video
Strategies and Patterns of Economic Development
China: Thomas G. Rawski, Professor of Economics and History, University of Pittsburgh
India: Arvind Panagariya, Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy, Columbia University
Audio and Video
Understanding Chinese Society: Education, Gender, Ethnicity, and Poverty
Tom Gold, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
Deborah Davis, Professor of Sociology, Yale University
Audio and Video
Understanding Indian Society: Education, Gender, Ethnicity and Poverty
Nita Kumar, Brown Family Chair of South Asian History, Claremont McKenna College
Lisa Mitchell, Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Audio and Video
Political Contrasts: Origins, Development and Challenges of Indian Democracy and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
China: Jacques deLisle, Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania and Director, Asia Program, FPRI
India: Sumit Ganguly, Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilization, Indiana University
Audio and Video
Discussion
Lucien Ellington, Professor of Education and Director, Asia Program, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Paul Dickler, Senior Fellow, FPRI Wachman Center
Download History Institute Agenda (2 pages, 415 KB PDF)

Additional Information

For information about future and previous history institutes visit: http://www.fpri.org/education/historyinstitutes.html

For information about FPRI's Program on Teaching Asia visit: http://www.fpri.org/education/asia/

Previous related History Institutes

  • China’s Encounter with the West
    March 1–2, 2008, Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Understanding China
    October 21–22, 2006, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wisconsin
  • Teaching India
    March 11–12, 2006, Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Understanding the Koreas
    April 9–10, 2005, American College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
  • Teaching Japan
    October 19-20, 2002, American College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
  • Teaching the Vietnam War
    May 6-7, 2000, American College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
  • FPRI Wishes to Thank its 2011 Partners
    Who help make all our programs possible.

    On November 15th at the FPRI annual dinner Fouad Ajami was presented with the Seventh Annual Benjamin Franklin Public Service Award. The event was attended by over 360 people.
    Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. was dinner chairman.

    FPRI 2011 Annual Dinner

    Video of keynote address
    Reflections on the Arab Spring

    Fouad Ajami

    Special Partner Event
    Al Qaeda and Jihadi Movements After Bin Laden
    Christopher Swift

    Special Partner Event
    The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda
    Peter Bergen

    FPRI Dinner Booklet and Annual report