SOAS China Institute and SOAS Centre of African Studies
Lecture: China and the West: Crossroads of Civilisation
Speaker: Prof. Peter Nolan (Chong Hua Professor of Chinese Development (Emeritus), Founding Director, Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge, and Director, China Centre, Jesus College, Cambridge)
Date: Wednesday 9 May 2018, 6pm-8pm
Venue: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, Brunei Gallery Building, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG.
Abstract
Human civilization stands at a crossroads. There are urgent global challenges that need to be confronted, including destruction of the natural environment; climate change; inequality of income, wealth and life chances; industrial concentration and regulation of the financial system. Looming above all of these is the issue of how to avoid a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and a New Peloponnesian War. Only by looking deep into the past can one better understand the possible direction that the long-term evolution of world civilization might take. The relationship between China and the West will play a central role in the path that humanity follows in the decades and centuries ahead. In the Ancient World for around 2,000 years the evolution of civilization in both China and the West followed convergent paths. From the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fourth century AD until the early nineteenth century their paths diverged radically. The long era of the ‘first divergence’ left a deep imprint on the culture of both East and West. The Industrial Revolution in Britain signalled the start of a second era of radical divergence, which lasted up until the late twentieth century. In the long sweep of world history this era is of short duration, a mere 200 years, compared with more than 4,000 years of complex civilization that preceded it. Since the 1980s the world has entered an era of renewed economic convergence between China and the West. However, there are still deep differences in the respective civilizations, which are inherited from the long sweep of history. These differences have the potential to result in conflict, producing global instability and violence, but they also have the potential to combine in a virtuous fashion that helps to construct a sustainable and peaceful global future for the whole of humanity.
Biography
Peter Nolan (CBE) is the Director of the Chinese Executive Leadership Programme (CELP), which each year brings CEOs from China’s largest firms to the University of Cambridge for a three-week training programme, taught by a combination of academics and the leaders of international firms. The Financial Times commented: ‘Nolan knows more about Chinese companies and their international competition than anyone else on earth, including in China’.
Professor Nolan has spoken at the Chinese Government’s annual China Development Forum since its inception in 2000. He has testified at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission of the US Congress and lectured to the Board of the US-China Business Council. He was a long time Director of the Centre of Development Studies in Cambridge and held the Chong Hua Chair in Chinese Development.
All welcome but registration is required.
Register here:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/cas/events/09may2018-china-and-the-west-crossroads-of-civilisation.html
Upcoming SCI Events:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/china-institute/events/
Best wishes,
Li-Sa Whittington
Executive Officer, SOAS China Institute
SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
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