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USAK Hosts 'International Conference on China in the World Order and the Turkish-Chinese Relationship' |
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Friday, 10 February 2012By Gözde Damla Citler, JTW
USAK hosts the ‘International Conference on China in the World Order and the Turkish-Chinese Relationship’ which was organised by USAK Asia-Pacific Centre.
The conference is being held in USAK Workshop Hall and it drew heavy attention from people of diverse backgrounds from academicians to bureaucrats and diplomats who came together to discuss the role of China as a global economic power as well as its place in the world affairs.
The conference has begun with the opening speech made by Prof. Kamer Kasim who talked about the Chinese-Turkish relations and how important this relationship is for Turkey. Afterwards, the floor was given to Mr. Gong Xiaosheng, Chinese Ambassador to Turkey. Mr. Xiaosheng has mentioned the importance of the mutual relationship between the two countries. While talking about the diplomatic, political and economic relations between China and Turkey, Mr. Xiaosheng has mentioned the import-export numbers between the two countries and said these numbers have increased in one decade. The Ambassador also stated that the year 2012 is the Chinese Cultural Year in Turkey which would further provide the two countries with cooperation.
In the first session of the conference which was chaired by Prof. Kamer Kasim, ‘Political Economy of China in World Affairs’ was discussed by four distinguished academicians. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sadik Unay from Yildiz Technical University made a presentation on ‘The Role of China in the Global Economy’. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay has mentioned the academic interest in the rise of China and said that being a major player in global political economy, global security and international trade, the discussion about China is mainly focused on if a new model can be deducted from Chinese structure. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay presented export figures from the WTO to which China became a member in 2001 while dividing the ascendence of China since 1978 into three parts: First, during the 1980s while the focus is on domestic market and rural population; second, the 1990s while socialist market economy, urban infrasturcture, government/private investment which brought FDIs and middle-class was developed; and the third, which was brought by the WTO accession, the economic opening and engagement with the global economy (low-cost structure, huge labour force). Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay has also said that the GINI co-efficient has risen from 0.2 to 0.5 which shows an increasing level of inequality and stated that this concerns the Chinese government.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay pointed out main challenges like urbanisation, city planning, environmental issues are faced by China while the impact of WTO membership provides the country with a rather free way to integrate with the global economy by not requiring negotiation with the US anymore. Becoming an integrated part of the global economy has increased the integration of banking sector in China, however China kept a rather low profile until 2008 and tried to avoid a confrontation, said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Unay also talked about the prominent ‘intentions’ debate especially in the US academic arena which raises the questions of whether the economic power turns to a geopolitical & political power.
The second speaker was Dr. Bahadir Pehlivanturk from TOBB University who talked about China in international politics. Dr. Pehlivanturk discussed the Gramscian hegemony and if it is applicable to China. He said that China was undoubtedly a historical hegemonic power, the centre of civilisation and the values came from China made the country so important in the ancient world. Dr. Pehlivanturk then compared China to the current hegemonic power, the US. Dr. Pehlivanturk raised the questions regarding the possibility for China to become a hegemonic state or what is going to make China attractive for the people to make people to follow it with its closed and restricted nation-state structure.
The third speaker in the session was Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ramazan Tas from Turgut Ozal University with a presentation entitled ‘The fundamental Dynamics of Chinese Economy’. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tas divided his presentation into four parts: First, because China has the biggest population and the biggest market; that’s China’s main advantage. Second part was about the supply side of Chinese model with its huge labour force, minimize costs which also stimulates supply. Thirdly, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tas spoke about the consumer market of China which is the biggest consumer market and while optimizing the scales no other economy can compete with China. The fourth part of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tas’s presentation was dedicated to the double digit growth rate of China and how the country invests more, consumes less with a high domestic saving, at the same time stimulating science and technology. ‘China doubled its R&D expenditure in 10 years’ said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tas emphasizing the importance of Chinese economy being an export oriented economy.
The last speaker was Prof. Yang Long who made a presentation titled ‘Political Economy Analysis of the Regional Development in China’ with three main topics which are as follows: (1) the regional disparity of china; the disparity between Eastern, middle and Western regions is still large, conflicts among localities, (2) motivations of cooperatons, (3) models of cooperation.
The first session ended with a Q&A session. |
Friday, 10 February 2012
Gözde Damla Citler
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