Event Coverage Highlight

People crowd around drone models at the Aviation Expo China in September 2015 in Beijing, China. Photo: VCG/Getty Images

China is attempting to transform itself from a low- and middle-wage manufacturing powerhouse into an “innovation nation” by 2025. There are huge implications. If China’s companies and enterprises can commercialize new technologies on a global basis, the world will feel the competitive impact. After all, China is the nation that invented gunpowder and paper. But if the Chinese get stuck in lower-level businesses and cannot create new high-tech jobs to replace disappearing manufacturing jobs, the social costs to Chinese stability could be enormous.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, the OPC, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Asia Society’s ChinaFile and Silicon Dragon are co-hosting a forum to discuss these implications.

Panelists:

Orville Schell, the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society and one of America’s foremost commentators on China.

Weiping Wu, a professor of urban planning at Columbia University, is an expert on the role of Chinese universities and public research institutes in fostering innovation in the technology clusters that the country is attempting to develop.

Yu Zhou, co-editor of China As An Innovation Nation and professor of geography and Asian studies at Vassar College.

Left to right: Orville Schell, Weiping Wu and Yu Zhou. Photos courtesy of panelists.

The moderator will be William J. Holstein, business journalist and author of seven books, including Has The American Media Misjudged China?

On Twitter, follow #ChinaBizOPC.

Attendance for the program is free. A cash reception will begin at 6:00 p.m., followed by the program from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

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