Professor Peter Rutland, chair of the College of Social Studies (CSS), presented two papers exploring the intricacies of globalization while attending the Eighth Annual Global Development Conference, held this year in Beijing from Jan. 12 to Jan. 17. Sponsored by donors that included the Global Development Network, the World Bank, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the event featured nearly 600 participants from 105 countries. The conference featured a weeklong series of workshops and presentations concerning the rise of Asia as an economic power.
Rutland, a prominent specialist on Russian political economy, presented his first paper concerning Russia’s development of an oil pipeline to Beijing’s Remnin University on Jan. 12. He presented his second paper, a comparison between Russia and China’s transition from socialism to capitalism during the Global Conference.
“The main purpose of the conference is to promote networking between scholars and activists,” Rutland said. “It was set up 10 years ago by the World Bank, which was criticized for being too much of a top-down organization which dealt only with governments rather than non-profits. So this conference is a way of the World Bank showing that they’re trying to reach out to the not-for-profit sector.”
Rutland first became involved with the conference last year when it took place in St. Petersburg. This year, he was invited back to present a paper on how Russia and China ended up developing similar state-controlled economies, despite following very different paths of government reform.
The paper argues that both China and Russia present a challenge to the traditional assumption held by the World Bank that democracy and open markets go together. Consequently, it is possible that a diversity of economic systems may exist in today’s globalized marketplace. More pessimistically, the paper also implies that real democracy may potentially be irrelevant for economic success.
“The idea that democracy and open markets go together was generally discredited by the rise of China,” Rutland said. “Russia tried to embrace it and it ended badly…and what you see today is that Russia is not a democracy at all. Both China and Russia arrived at the same place, although they started off heading in different directions.”
Other universities represented at the conference included Columbia, Brown, and Berkeley. However, the bulk of attendants represented universities and non-governmental organizations from developing nations like India, Iran, and Ghana.
Rutland commented on how the strong presence from developing nations created pressure upon the views traditionally held by groups based in London and Washington D.C.
“There was a gulf between the presentations and people’s actual experiences,” Rutland said. “The World Bank believes there’s one path to economic growth and equality, but at this conference there were all these people coming in from all corners of their world with their own concrete experiences. You would have presentations about aid in the South Pacific, and there would be people in the audience from Fiji standing up and saying that 80 percent of that aid actually never left Australia…[it made for] interesting confrontations [with] London and D.C. people.”
The fact that the conference was held in Beijing also provided Rutland, who admits he has always studied Russia more avidly than China, with opportunities to familiarize himself with China’s infamous economic boom, as well as the country’s intellectuals.
“Beijing is a boom town now,” Rutland said. “You know, you read the Western Press, which presents China as this ecological disaster just waiting to happen. But Chinese intellectuals see a lot of progress in society… they’re very positive and upbeat and confident about reform.”
After a weeklong conference exploring the implications of Asia’s rise to power, Rutland left with firsthand experience of China’s transformation.
“Construction was everywhere,” he said. “Within three blocks of where the conference was taking place, there were three huge shopping malls. You couldn’t fail to be impressed by the wealth being generated all around. It’s a very big change from the China of Mao Tse-Tung.”
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