logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2023
54m 22s

Yasheng Huang on the Development of the ...

MERCATUS CENTER AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
About this episode

Yasheng Huang has written two of Tyler’s favorite books on China: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, which contrasts an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China, and The Rise and Fall of the EAST, which argues that Keju—China’s civil service exam system—played a key role in the growth and expanding power of the Chinese state.

Yasheng joined Tyler to discuss China’s lackluster technological innovation, why declining foreign investment is more of a concern than a declining population, why Chinese literacy stagnated in the 19th century, how he believes the imperial exam system deprived China of a thriving civil society, why Chinese succession has been so stable, why the Six Dynasties is his favorite period in Chinese history, why there were so few female emperors, why Chinese and Chinese Americans have done less well becoming top CEOs of American companies compared to Indians and Indian Americans, where he’d send someone on a two week trip to China, what he learned from János Kornai, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video

Recorded January 17th, 2023

Other ways to connect

Photo credit: MIT Sloan School

Up next
Yesterday
David Robertson on Conducting, Pierre Boulez, and Musical Interpretation
David Robertson is a rare conductor who unites avant-garde complexity with accessibility. After serving as music director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez’s storied contemporary-music ensemble, he went on to rejuvenate the St. Louis Symphony. Robertson combines a ... Show More
59m 34s
Jun 25
Austan Goolsbee on Central Banking as a Data Dog
Austan Goolsbee is one of Tyler Cowen’s favorite economists—not because they always agree, but because Goolsbee embodies what it means to think like an economist. Whether he’s analyzing productivity slowdowns in the construction sector, exploring the impact of taxes on digital co ... Show More
58m 40s
Jun 18
Chris Arnade on Walking Cities
Most people who leave Wall Street after twenty years either retire or find another way to make a lot of money. Chris Arnade chose to walk through cities most travelers never truly see. What emerged from this approach is a unique form of street-level sociology that has attracted a ... Show More
58m 55s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2023
There’s Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed
There are few stories that are more crucial to the world’s future than what’s happening in China. Take any of the most important issues of our time — climate change, geopolitics, the global economy, advanced technologies — and China is at the center of them. American politics its ... Show More
1h 19m
Mar 2023
How China Went From Economic Superstar to Faltering Giant
In just a few years, the narrative on China has almost completely flipped. The dominant sentiments in America had been awe, envy and a kind of fear. China’s growth seemed relentless. Its manufacturing prowess was lapping ours. It weathered the pandemic without the mass death seen ... Show More
1h 20m
Jul 2021
China's trailblazing foreign students
China has the largest number of overseas students in the world but when students first started venturing out of Communist China it was still a country feeling the aftereffects of the Cultural Revolution. Launched in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong the Cultural Revolution plun ... Show More
13m 20s
Nov 2021
Melissa Macauley, "Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier" (Princeton UP, 2021)
“The Europeans raise all the cattle, but the Chinese get all the milk.”This joke, told in colonial Singapore, was indicative of the importance of the Chinese diaspora throughout Southeast Asia. Chinese migrants were miners, laborers, merchants and traders: the foundation of many ... Show More
51m 50s
Mar 2021
Yuen Yuen Ang, "China's Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
How do we make sense of the “durability and gigantic scale” of China’s economic expansion alongside the reports of “rising” and “explosive” corruption? How has China moved from an “impoverished communist regime to a capitalist superpower rivaling the United States” despite a cris ... Show More
53m 43s
May 2022
Ban Wang, "China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision" (Duke UP, 2022)
Ban Wang's book China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision (Duke University Press, 2022), traces the evolution of modern China from the late nineteenth century to the present. With a focus on tensions and connections between national formation and international outlo ... Show More
58m 18s
May 2021
The Chinese Immigrants Who Built America
May 10, 1869. On the dusty, barren plains of Promontory Summit, Utah, a crowd is gathered to celebrate an American milestone – the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the first piece of infrastructure to connect the two sides of the United States. But this achievement di ... Show More
24m 2s
Jun 2024
John Keane and Baogang He, "China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century" (Oxford UP, 2023)
In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. Baogang He, target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a posit ... Show More
1h 8m
Aug 2022
The Art of War: Ancient Chinese guide to victory
The Art of War is one of the most important military strategy texts ever written, and it has become just as influential, perhaps even more so, in the worlds of business, sport, and politics. Bridget Kendall learns what the 2,000-year-old treatise has to say about deception, spyin ... Show More
39m 57s
Jan 2023
The World Ahead 2023: China's challenges
As president Xi Jinping begins his third five-year term, China’s path forward is uncertain. Covid-19 is tearing through the country after it relaxed its strict “zero-covid” policies. China also faces slowing economic growth and rising geopolitical tensions with America. Are China ... Show More
26m 31s