EVENTS

The rapid Chinese urbanisation process has been admired, much studied but perhaps still less understood than one would like. Of particular interest in this process has been the phenomenon often described as financialization and the nexus of land, urban finance and governance and the real estate industry, which by some estimates, may contribute as much as a quarter of GDP, directly and indirectly. The process of urban transformation in China is intricately imbricated with the Chinese growth model. What is the nature of this process and what implication do the recent events in the real estate industry have for the future evolution of Chinese cities and the growth model?

About the Panellists

Fulong Wu is the Bartlett Professor of Planning and a joint coordinator of China Planning Research Group at University College London. He completed his PhD in Urban Planning at the University of Hong Kong in 1995. Before coming to UCL, he taught in Southampton University and then in 2005 became Professor of East Asian Planning and Development and the director of Urban China Research Centre at Cardiff University. Dr. Wu’s research interests include urban development in China and its social and sustainable challenges. He is currently the principal investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant – Rethinking China’s Model of Governance (ChinaUrban) (https://Urban-China.Org).

Tao Wang is a Managing Director and Head of Asia Economic Research at UBS Global Research. She leads a top ranked team that covers macroeconomic and policy issues in Asia and China, and she has ranked as the top China/Asia economist in multiple Institutional Investor surveys. She advises China's policy agencies and the central bank on a regular basis, and attended the 2015 expert consultation session of Premier Li Keqiang. She also served as a member of the Mainland Opportunities Committee of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council between 2016 and 2021. Prior to joining UBS, Dr. Wang was Head of Greater China Economics and Strategy at Bank of America and Head of Asian Economics at BP plc., and before that, a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) covering China. She has published a number of research papers and has a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Renmin University in Beijing.

Yue Zhang is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty of Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Politics from Princeton University and her B.A. degree in International Relations from Peking University. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of comparative and urban politics, with a focus on the political economy of development, urbanization in the Global South, metropolitan and urban governance, and global migration. She has conducted research in urban settings in many countries including China, India, Brazil, France, and the United States. She is a recipient of many distinguished fellowships and grants, has been a Co-Editor of Urban Affairs Review and is the author of The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation: Beijing, Chicago, and Paris (Univ. of Minnesota Press 2013; Chinese translation 2018

About the moderator

Partha Mukhopadhyay is Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research since 2006. He was previously part of the founding team at the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), focusing on private participation in infrastructure. In previous positions, he has been with the Export-Import Bank of India, and with the World Bank in Washington. He has been on the faculty at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur and the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi. He has published extensively, frequently writes for the national media and has also been associated with a number of government committees. Most recently, he was chair of the Working Group on Migration, Government of India and member of the High-Level Railway Restructuring Committee, Ministry of Railways and of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. He has previously been associated with the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources and with the Prime Minister's Task Force on Infrastructure. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Council of LIRNEasia, Colombo. He received his PhD in economics from New York University and an MA and M.Phil from the Delhi School of Economics.

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