Academics discuss social governance

The focus for China during the last 40 years has been on "catching-up" and bringing the country back to where it was in the middle of the 19th century, a professor emeritus at Oxford University contended at the 4th China-UK Symposium on the Modernization of Social Governance.

Robert Walker, an emeritus fellow at Green Templeton College at Oxford University, said one of China's biggest achievements in that time has been in poverty alleviation, which is something no other country has accomplished on the same scale.

"China has recently achieved the greatest reduction in poverty during the shortest period in the whole of human history, and China alone was responsible for half of the world's reduction of poverty," he said.

Walker, who was one of 11 non-Chinese experts consulted by Premier Li Keqiang for the State Council's 2019-20 Work Plan, is a research fellow at Beijing Normal University.

He said a process that took Western Europe 200 years to complete — the transition from an agricultural society to a post-industrial one — only took China 50 years.

Walker noted that China's speedy transition was aided by its ability to copy and learn from other countries, but said of China: "It has not got too much to learn because, in many ways, it's leading into the future."

The symposium at which he spoke was organized by the China Academy of Social Management and School of Sociology at Beijing Normal University, and by the Oxford Prospects and Global Development Institute at Oxford University's Regent's Park College.

Walker said the discussion of social governance was "of crucial importance because it's about how we live together as individuals".

"It's how we progress and how we redistribute the resources in our society".

The two-day event in Oxford on Monday and Tuesday drew more than 40 scholars and academics from both China and the UK to discuss four key topics: social governance of ageing, educational reform and social development, rural revitalization, and integration of industry, education and urban governance.

Wei Liqun, a former director of the State Council Research Office, made a keynote speech in which he outlined the progress and enlightenment of social governance modernization construction during the past 70 years in China.

He said the nation has gradually transformed from a system of social control and social management to social governance, and from being a poverty-stricken society to a moderately prosperous one. But Wei also said the country must continue to deepen reform and the opening-up of social sectors in advancing social governance modernization, and in upholding coordinated development between social construction and other construction in advancing social governance modernization.

On the subject of the social governance of ageing, George Leeson, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing at the University of Oxford, said it is important to respect the national conditions of nations and their stage of development.

"When we talk about a country, it is not just something that happened overnight," Leeson said. "There is a culture and there is a history behind whatever level of welfare."

He said it would be tempting to look at Scandinavia and its comprehensive levels of welfare and see it as a model, but we should ask whether that type of development suits other countries.

"I think one has to look to many countries and said, okay that little bit would suit us, but that little bit wouldn't be suitable for us, because our culture and our way of doing things are so different and people wouldn't accept that," Leeson added.

He also emphasized the key to addressing the ageing issue lies in understanding demographics.

"It's critical that one sees that as a positive development and harness the resource, rather than having to tackle it as a burden," he said.

Xie Qiong, a professor at Beijing Normal University, said that the large population, fast speed of change, and deep impact of ageing before getting rich are China's population characteristics. But, in contrast to developed countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Japan, and Germany, China is at an early stage of developing an ageing society and people are increasingly understanding the need for healthy and active ageing.