EVENTS

In May 2020, as the world was grappling with Covid, Xi Jinping made an announcement that China was going to focus on developing what he called a “dual circulation strategy”. As a general objective, this strategy aims to promote innovation driven high-quality growth as a long-term target. It also goes well with China’s long stated objective of reducing regional and income inequalities. This is in line with the 2035 goal of becoming a “strong and technologically advanced country that is a global leader in both innovation and new forms of industrialization”. This plan was then formalised in the fifth plenum in October 2020 and the communique stated that the goal was to “comprehensively promote consumption and open new room for investments”. As is visible it encompasses a diverse set of goals. Its meaning was redefined when the target of Common prosperity was set.

Dual Circulation has been interpreted in various ways, that it is a defensive strategy or as a proactive strategy. It has also been interpreted as China’s response to de-globalization tendencies. Some of the questions that can be discussed include various influencing factors behind this strategy & how it would impact the reform process? What sort of structural adjustments are needed domestically for it to work? How would it address the issues of social security and consumption? This project studies the driving factors behind the dual circulation strategy and attempts to understand how the diverse set of stakeholders have responded to the strategy and if and how it has led to any discernible changes on the ground thus far.

About the Speaker

Avinash Anil Godbole is Associate Professor and Assistant Academic Dean at JSLH, Jindal Global University. He received the Ashoka China India Visiting Scholars Fellowship for 2021-22 to work on China’s Dual Circulation Strategy. Previously he has worked with ICWA and IDSA. His doctoral thesis was on the Political Economy of China’s Environment. He was a Visiting Fox Fellow at the Macmillan Center at Yale in 2007-08. His research interests are in the fields of Chinese Foreign Policy, Environmental Changes in China, Minorities in China, Domestic Politics in China, China’s Asia strategy and India-China Relations. He has written extensively on these subjects in academic and media publications. He has been part of the India-China Think tank Forum and has been involved in various other track 1.5 and track 2 events. He is a Visiting Faculty at the Naval War College, Goa since June 2020 and SIRSS, Mumbai University since January 2022.

About the Chair

Amita Batra is Professor of Economics and currently the Chairperson of the Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, JNU. Batra was Senior Visiting Fellow at the Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney in October 2018 and the first holder of the ICCR Professorial Chair in Contemporary Indian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, 2013. She has been visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. She is on the editorial committee/ board of international journals: Asian Perspective (John Hopkins University, USA) and Journal of Asian Economic Integration (Sage). Prof Batra is member, Economic Affairs Council (since 2020) of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). She is a member of the Advisory Group for G20 (Finance track), 2022-2023, constituted by the DEA, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India. She has written and published extensively on Trade Policy issues. Her latest book India’s Trade Policy in the 21st Century (Routledge: London) is forthcoming.

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