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Waseda University Economist Xichuan
Run Talks about Globalization and the
Civil Society PKU NEWS 2004—11—06
By Xue Linyan
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=99894843
Peking University, Beijing, Nov 6th, 2004: Professor Xichuan Run of Waseda
University gave his speech on Globalization and the Civil Society at YingJie
Exchange Center on Friday. The lecture was emceed by Professor Liang Yunxiang
of School of International Studies.
Professor Xichuan Run is a famous economist of Japan. His main research realm is
developing economy, and these years he has focused his research on the civil
society and China‘s west development. He comes to China at least once every year,
and has developed a deep connection with Chinese people. Now, he works for
political economy department of Waseda University. In the year of 1995, professor
Xichuan run also taught at PKU‘s economy department.
At first,Pro. Xichuan defined globalization in term of internationalized producing and
trade. He mentioned both good and bad effect globalization might bring. Whenever
there is light, there is shadow. As Pro. Xichuan see it, the ―shadow‖ of globalization is
that, as the production essentials is accumulated to a certain area, some other areas
with no geographic advantages may be dragged back. For instance, in China, the
gap between east and west and between rural areas and urban areas is big, since
the eastern area and the urban area attract resources, energy and labor, which is
essential to industrial production. On the other hand, the western area and the rural
area‘s development blocked because of the lack of production essentials. Another
negative influence is that the environment may be heavily polluted. The reason is
complicated. Because of the expansion of some high-polluting industry, and exhaust
gas like CO2 increases in the air, the earth‘s environment is declining badly. In
developing countries where there is less medicine, the damage of flood, earthquake,
and some other forms of natural disaster is getting more and more severe. Also, as
the industrialized way of production is popularized in the whole world,
newly-discovered destructive diseases like BSE, SARS, HIV and AIDS is spreading.
The first victims are poor people of the developing countries. And that‘s just some of
the negative influence.
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