Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts China and India: Ancient Civilizations, Rising Powers, Giant Societies, and Contrasting Models of Development

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

Date : Sat., March 19, 2011 to Sun., March 20, 2011 Category : Butcher History Institute

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 A. McDougall

Co-Chair, History Institute for Teachers and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations

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

Keynote: China, India, and the US: A Geopolitical Perspective

Robert D. Kaplan

Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security

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Keynote: China, India, and the US: A Geopolitical Perspective

Two Grand Civilizational Traditions: What Are They and How Do They Matter Today?

Evelyn S. Rawski

Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh

Daud Ali

Chair of the Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania

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Confucius in a Business Suit: Civilizational Norms in the Twenty-First Century (PDF)

Confucius in a Business Suit: Civilizational Norms in the Twenty-First Century (PPT)

Two Traditions (PDF)

Two Traditions (PPT)

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Confucius in a Business Suit: Chinese Civilizational Norms in the Twenty-first Century

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Two Grand Civilizational Traditions: What Are They and How Do They Matter Today?

Strategies and Patterns of Economic Development

Thomas G. Rawski

Professor of Economics and History, University of Pittsburgh

Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy, Columbia University

Related Material(s):

China’s Economy: Recent Growth and Historical Legacies (PDF)

China’s Economy: Recent Growth and Historical Legacies (PPT)

Indian Economy in Graphs (PDF)

Indian Economy in Graphs (PPT)

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The Rise of China’s Economy

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Strategies and Patterns of Economic Development

Understanding Chinese Society: Education, Gender, Ethnicity, and Poverty

Tom Gold

Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Deborah Davis

Professor of Sociology, Yale University

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Poverty: Definitions, Estimates, and Consequences (PDF)

Poverty: Definitions, Estimates, and Consequences (PPT)

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Understanding Chinese Society

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Understanding Chinese Society: Education, Gender, Ethnicity, and Poverty

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

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Education and Democracy in India (PDF)

Education and Democracy in India (PPT)

Language, Ethnicity, and Disparities in Contemporary India (PDF)

Language, Ethnicity, and Disparities in Contemporary India (PPT)

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Understanding Indian Society: Education, Gender, Ethnicity and Poverty

Political Contrasts: Origins, Development and Challenges of Indian Democracy and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

Jacques deLisle

Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania and Director, Asia Program, FPRI

Sumit Ganguly

Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilization, Indiana University

Related Material(s):

Challenges and Patterns of Politics and Governance in the People's Republic of China (PPT)

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Politics and Governance in the People’s Republic of China: From “A Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party” to “To Get Rich Is Glorious” to Creating a “Harmonious Society”

The Story of Indian Democracy

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Political Contrasts: Origins, Development and Challenges of Indian Democracy and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

Discussion

Private: Lucien Ellington

Professor of Education and Director, Asia Program, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Paul Dickler

Senior Fellow, FPRI Wachman Center

Location

Venue

Steinberg-Dietrich Hall-University of Pennsylvania

3620 Locust Walk PA Philadelphia 19104

Registration links

Register Deadline

Wed., August 15, 2012