China and the World Economy: Integration, Industrialisation, Innovation and Institutions
The talk explores China’s economic evolution, global integration, industrialisation, technological innovation, & role in shaping new multilateral institutions.
📍 Location: RH102, Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington
✉️ Register: ChinaCentre@vuw.ac.nz
Abstract:
The talk traces China’s economic evolution across roughly seven decades. It examines four inter‑connected pillars: China’s progressive integration into the global economy, how it harnessed foreign capital and overseas markets to drive large‑scale industrialisation, its ongoing push for indigenous technological innovation, and its role in establishing new multilateral institutions. Reflecting on policy shifts and development trajectories, this discussion unpacks how these dimensions jointly shaped China’s engagement with, and impact on, the world economy.
Bio
Dr Xianbai Ji is Director of the Institute for South and Southeast Asian Studies, School of Global and Area Studies and Associate Professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China in Beijing.
He has authored and edited several books including China’s Area Studies: History and Development (RUC Press, 2025), Sanctions and Economic Warfare (RUC Press, 2025), Mega-regionalism and Great Power Geo-economic Competition (Routledge, 2022), From Centralised to Decentralising Global Economic Architecture: The Asian Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Impacts on Asian and Policy Agenda (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). His academic articles have been published by Qiushi (求是, the official journal of the CPC Central Committee), Chinese Journal of International Politics, The Pacific Review, Asia Europe Journal, Contemporary Southeast Asia and Asian Perspective, among others. He has also published policy pieces at think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA).
Dr Ji obtained his doctorate from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore as a Nanyang President’s Graduate Scholar.