Transcript
CARLOS PASCUAL: Today, we are going to focus on the question of China's changing political landscape and the upcoming 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. The Party congress is held every five years. It selects members of the Central Committee, the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee. It is also used to lay out a political vision where the top leaders hope to guide China's development over the next half decade.
Why is this important? Now, let me give you a sense. If we think about China in 2050, it will have the largest GDP in the world; it will be the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world; it will have the largest active duty military in the world; and it will have, after India, the second largest population. Without China, it will be impossible to address the world's key challenges, whether they be economic growth and prosperity, poverty, environmental sustainability, energy security, or peace and security on the planet.
Whatever those principle issues are, unless the United States and China are centrally involved in tackling those questions, it will be simply impossible to address those issues with any degree of success, and hence, this conference will seek to help us understand China, its goals, its decision-makers, the structures for how those decisions are made and how they might impact on policy.
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