Li Xiguang
Tsinghua University International Center for Communication
"From American Dream to Chongqing Dream: the Making of Soft Power in China"
November 11
3:00-4:30 PM
Watson Institute, Joukowsky Forum
111 Thayer Street

This presentation used the Chongqing story to give a fresh angle to discuss the forces behind the recent socioeconomic change of China. The Chongqing story deepens the China model that a legitimate and superior governing model providing housing, security, good environment, good traffic, and longer life instead of pursuing the Washington consensus by reducing the public sector and eliminating state–owned enterprises. Since 1978, Chinese people have experienced a change, in which everyone became better off. But in recent decades, the gap between rich and poor is widening: the richest 10 percent hold 45 percent of the wealth, and the poorest 10 percent have only 1.4 percent; the per capita income of urban residents is 3.23 times that of rural dwellers; People in the coastal areas make twice as much as residents living in the western provinces; the widening wealth gap is sparking social unrest and undermine the government’s authority over the country’s 1.4 billion people. 30 years after Deng Xiaoping launched reform, Bo Xilai introduces a set of well-being index in Chongqing, seeking social equality and a reform benefiting all people.

Li Xiguang, Dean of Tsinghua University International Center for Communication Studies; Dean of the Chinese Academy of World Agendas of the Southwestern University of Political Science and Law, Member of the Experts Committee for Disease Control of the Ministry of Health, Member of the Experts Committee for Crisis Handling of the Ministry of Health, Vice-Chairman of the Journalism Education Committee of the Ministry of Health, leading  media adviser to the office of the Minister of Education.

Before Li Xiguang founded the journalism program of Tsinghua University, he was fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, senior editor and director of the political, cultural and science desk of Xinhua News Agency, Science and medical writer with the Washington Post,senior writer and deputy director of the political, cultural and science desk of Xinhua News Agency, Young Scholar of Unesco Silk Road Project Chief science and medical writer of Xinhua News Agency. His latest books include  "Soft power and China Dream," "Soft Power and Global Communication," "Intellectual Dialogues of Tibet," "The future of jounalism education," "News Reporting and Writing."

He has received a number of significant national and international awards for his pioneering work in health and journalism education, including UNAIDS Awards for Outstanding Contribution to the Control of AIDS "China's Best Health Educator," " China's Best Course of News Reporting and Writing," and "China's Top 10 Educator." He writes a Weekly Column on the English newspaper Global Times.

Sponsored by: the Year of China, the Watson Institute for International Studies, Strait Talk, and the A. Alfred Taubman Center of Public Policy and American Institutions.

Poster for Lecture