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北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
By Hu Jun
Professor Zhu (Forth from the Left Back Row) By Hu Jun
Peking University, Beijing, Nov 26th, 2004: Professor Zhu Tianbiao from School of
Government PKU queried into the mainstream theory on the routes for developing
nations in his wide-hailed lecture on Friday evening.
Professor Zhu began his lecture with an introduction of the popular political
economic explanation for development in developing countries. He briefed the
audience on the famous political economist Alexander Gerschenkron who
categorized the developing countries in history into three generations each
represented by the USA and Belgium in middle of the 19th century, by France and
Germany in the end of the 19th century and by Japan and Russia at the beginning of
the 20th century. Gerschenkron noticed that developing countries were
characterized with an increasingly powerful state organization and centralization and
argued that with the help of ―backwardness advantages‖ or ―late comer advantages‖
and the powerful organization, developing countries could learn from the developed
and focus their resource on the most critical industry and catch up quickly.
Challenging the above explanation with a group of statistics which showed the
widening gap between the developed and the developing, Mr. Zhu elaborated his
own understanding of the topic. He suggested that attention should first be paid on
failure of development rather than development itself. He furthered his lecture with a
perspective of political economics and led the discussion onto the support and
function of the society and the state. He analyzed the resistance from the society and
the autonomy and development interest of states in different international
backgrounds. Four groups of cases were studied as evidence in the lecture, which
depicted the rising of the USA, Germany, Russia-Soviet Union and East-Asian
miracles.
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