From laggard to superpower: Explaining China’s High-Speed Rail ‘Miracle’
Speaker: Prof. Gerald Chan
University of Auckland
Date: 1 November 2016 (Tuesday)
Time: 2:30-4:00pm
Venue: C105, School of International Studies, Peking University
Abstract
The rise of China as a high-speed rail competitor has stunned the world. Although the country is a latecomer to high-speed rail technology, it has developed very fast in this field in the past decade. Now the country has the biggest high-speed rail network, measuring about 20,000km (at the end of 2015 and expanding), representing some sixty per cent of the global total mileage. It has started to actively export its high-speed rail products and technologies to other countries.
How can China turn itself from where it knew close to very little about high-speed rail to a global leader in the field, all within about ten years? What explains this ‘technological revolution’? To what extent can other countries copy China’s innovation? Answers to these questions will have a huge impact not only on technology transfer, but also on global wealth generation and (re)distribution.
About the Speaker
Gerald Chan is professor of politics and international relations and former head of the department of political studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He was previously a senior research fellow at Cambridge University and professor of East Asian politics at Durham University where he headed its China centre. He is East Asian Institute (Seoul) fellow in 2016 and senior fellow-designate at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, in 2017. He is currently researching on China’s high-speed rail diplomacy and on theorising China’s ‘one belt, one road’ initiative.
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