“Rising China” is imagined as a land of success, where living standards have shot up in a short space of time, and where a “new middle class” now thrives.  This conference does something different: it examines two polar sides of the wealth spectrum, and asks:   Why and how did the country’s economic “reform” produce a “new rich” and a “new poor?”

The UCI Long U.S.-China Institute, the School of Social Sciences, and The School of Humanities bring together leading speakers from across the country to address these topics.

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Panelists

• Ann Anagnost, University of Washington
  • "A New Great Leap Forward? China's Urbanization Policy: Implication for Food Security and Rural Well-Being"
• Alexander F. Day, Occidental College
  • "The End of the Alternatives? Capitalists, Agrarian Change, and New Rural Reconstruction in China" (with Mindi Schneider)
• Wang Feng, UC Irvine
  • "Benevolent State against an Unequal Society? Inequities in Public Transfer in China"
• Karl Gerth, UC San Diego
  • "Peddling Prosperity: Getihu as Drivers of Change in Early Postsocialist China, 1978-92"
• Joshua Goldstein, University of Southern California 
  • "From the Trash Heap to the Ash Heap? Possible Fates Facing China's 3-5 Million Informal Recyclers." 
• John Osburg, University of Rochester
  • "Corruption, Anti-Corruption, and the Dynamics of Elite Class Formation in Post-Mao China"
• Scott Rozelle, Stanford University
  • "Identifying the Sources of Rural-Urban Human Capital Inequality: Rural Health, Nutrition and Education"
• Kamal Sadiq, UC Irvine
• Dorothy Solinger, UC Irvine
  • "Banish the Impoverished Past: The Predicament of the Abandoned Urban Poor"
• Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UC Irvine
• Yang Su, UC Irvine
• Li Zhang, UC Davis
  • "Convergence and Divergence among the Rich and the Poor"

Program

8:30-9:00        Arrival, pastry and coffee

9:00-9:15        Welcome  Dean Bill Maurer (UC Irvine)

9:15-10:15       Keynote (Introduced by Dorothy Solinger (UCI))

• • • • Li Zhang (UC Davis)

10:15-10:30     Coffee break

10:30-12:30     Rural Poverty  (Chair: Yang Su (UCI))

• • • • Scott Rozelle (Stanford)
      • Alexander F. Day (Occidental College)
      • Ann Anagnost (U. Washington)

12:30-1:30       Lunch

1:30 – 3:00      Urban Poverty (Chair:  Kamal Sadiq (UCI))

• • • • Joshua Goldstein (USC)
      • Dorothy Solinger (UCI)

3:30-3:45        Coffee Break

3:45-5:05        Wealth (Chair: Mei Zhan (UCI))

• • • • John Osburg (Rochester)
      • Karl Gerth (UC San Diego)

5:05-5:45        Inequality (Chair: Benjamin van Rooij (UCI))

• • • • Wang Feng (UC Irvine)

5:45-6:00        Concluding Remarks

• • • • Li Zhang (UC Davis) (or Dorothy Solinger) (UCI)
      • Jeffrey Wasserstrom (UCI)