NEW HAVEN – After my recent trip to Beijing to attend the 25th annual China Development Forum (CDF), the country’s most important public conference, one question keeps turning over in my head: What’s the point?

I raise this question as a CDF insider – as the longest-attending foreign delegate, having participated in all but the first CDF in 2000. I have witnessed this event at its best and its worst. I can say with certainty that this year’s gathering marked a new low – hence my question.

Former Premier Zhu Rongji conceived of the CDF as a forum for debate and exchange between senior Chinese leaders and foreign academics, think-tank experts, and business leaders. The timing of the conference – immediately following the National People’s Congress (NPC) – was deliberate: Zhu held the provocative view that the ministers of the State Council should engage with outside experts immediately after their internal deliberations at the NPC. It was, in effect, a stress test for senior Chinese officials.

QOSHE - China Stifles Its Own Debate - Stephen S. Roach
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China Stifles Its Own Debate

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12.04.2024

NEW HAVEN – After my recent trip to Beijing to attend the 25th annual China Development Forum (CDF), the country’s most important public conference, one question keeps turning over in my head: What’s the point?

I raise this question as a CDF........

© Project Syndicate

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