china

Hong KongIn the days leading up to China’s taking over Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, the media and political pundits were spouting cautionary tales of how China would ruin Hong Kong’s success as Southeast Asia’s financial center. Were the foretellers of doom correct in their outlook? Not at all, says David Meyer, visiting professor of business at Washington University in St. Louis. In fact, ten years later, both Hong Kong and China have reaped the benefits.

Political developments affecting American business and new challenges and directions in political risk analysis will be the focus of a public forum from 8 a.m.-noon March 23 in the May Auditorium of Simon Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University.

Over the past 18 months, many trees have given their lives so that articles titled something like, “Is India the next China?” could appear. But, an equally interesting question a professor from Washington University in St. Louis posed is, “Is China the next India?” These two questions offer a lens through which we might glimpse, however darkly, the economic futures of India and China. And by posing these questions side by side, Professor Jim Little said we can see an interesting pattern emerge: as China moves up the technology ladder, the drivers of its growth are becoming more like India’s. At the same time, India increasingly resembles China’s current economy as it develops as a manufacturing base.

The Financial Times has, for the first time, ranked the Executive M.B.A. program, a joint venture between the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and Shanghai-based Fudan University’s School of Management.

“U.S.-China Business Relations” is the focus of a three-day academic symposium that kicks off with a public conference from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. May 11 in Room 311, Anheuser-Busch Hall. U.S.-China commercial relations and intellectual property rights are among topics to be covered.

His new book is titled The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary China.

Spurred by concerns over China’s booming economy, the Bush administation plans to crank-up pressure on Chinese authorities to curtail the rampant theft of intellectual property — the black market in pirated films, software and equipment that costs American companies billions in lost sales. While anti-piracy rhetoric plays well in Washington, a new book on the “Politics of Piracy” in China suggests that external diplomatic pressure will have little effect on China’s ability to enforce international norms on copyrights, trademarks and patents. “The key to gaining enforcement of those laws lies at the local level,” says the book’s author, WUSTL China specialist Andrew Mertha.

Jerome A. Cohen, a leading American specialist on law in the People’s Republic of China, will present a lecture on “Criminal Justice & U.S.-China Relations” at 3 p.m. Nov. 10 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies at the School of Law. A question and answer session and reception will follow the lecture.

Students in the inaugural Executive MBA class of a joint program between the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai, China, arrived in St. Louis on September 6 for two weeks packed with classes and celebrations. The 70 students from China completed their MBA degrees with a capstone two-week residency at the Washington University business school.