China Task Force Meeting, New York City 2007

This discussion served as a follow-up to our summer's meeting on "Institutional Design for China's Evolving Market Economy." Columbia University's Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) and Committee on Global Thought met in Manchester in a joint undertaking with Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the University of Manchester to discuss possibilities for the formation of a task force on China's institutional design.

China is now entering a critical phase in its move to a market economy, one that is distinctly Chinese. Ongoing debates, and discussions over the next few years, will have a major effect on the kind of market economy into which China will evolve. This provides a unique opportunity to think about differences in institutional arrangements and their consequences--and what would normally be an academic exercise could turn out to have enormous import for a quarter of the world's population.

In February 2007, a core group discussed foundational issues, property rights, and competition law / intellectual property rights, and hope that the group will be able to identify lessons from China that are relevant for other developing countries.

We hope that the papers and commentaries that come out of this project will be published in Chinese and in English, as one in the Initiative for Policy Dialogue book series published by Oxford and Columbia University Presses.