[Book Launch] The Price of Zero: China’s Policy Missteps During and After the Pandemic
Join Professor Donald Low, Senior Lecturer at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), for a book launch exploring China’s post-COVID slowdown, its causes, impacts, and efforts to boost growth.
Details
Speaker: Donald Low
Moderator: Dato’ Dr Ooi Kee Beng (黄基明博士)
Date: Monday, 27th January 2025
Time: 3:00 – 4.30PM
Location: Conference Hall, Penang Institute
Note: Entrance to this event is FREE. Join us in person or watch the live stream on Penang Institute’s Facebook and YouTube channel.
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ABSTRACT
The Chinese economy has not rebounded since pandemic restrictions were lifted at the end of 2022. High debt levels, falling property prices, excess capacity in many industries, falling foreign direct investment, and tepid consumption growth have all contributed to a weak recovery and persistent deflationary pressures. Commentators predict that the Chinese economy has peaked, and that it is now undergoing ‘Japanification’ – a reference to Japan’s lost decades marked by a prolonged period of sluggish growth and debt deflation. In response, the Chinese government has launched an ambitious plan – emphasising the technologies and industries of the future – to invest in ‘new quality productive forces’, increase productivity, and ensure technology self-sufficiency in the face of growing trade tensions. Amid the slowdown at home, Chinese firms are investing heavily in the rest of world, especially in developing countries. What are the causes of China’s post-Covid slowdown? Is the slowdown structural or cyclical? And what are its likely impacts on the rest of Asia and the world?
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Donald Low is Senior Lecturer and Professor of Practice in public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He’s the editor of Behavioural Economics and Policy Design: Examples from Singapore (2011), the lead author of Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus (2015), and co-author of PAP v PAP: The Party’s Struggle to Adapt to a Changing Singapore (2020). His latest book is The Price of Zero: China’s Policy Missteps During and After Covid (2024), which examines the causes and economic consequences of the zero-Covid policy that the Chinese authorities pursued for much of the pandemic. He argues that initial success with Covid suppression bred hubris, utopian thinking, and overconfidence, leading to a series of crackdowns on industries that, until recently, were key sources of China’s growth. The Price of Zero will be available for sale at this talk at MYR 50.
MODERATOR
Dato’ Dr Ooi Kee Beng (黄基明博士), Executive Director of Penang Institute has been studying the process of nation-building in Asia and analyzing Malaysian politics over the last three decades. He was appointed Executive Director of Penang Institute in 2017.
He received his Ph.D. in Sinology from Stockholm University, Sweden. Before returning to the region, he worked at Ericsson Electronics in Sweden for 22 years during the heyday of that company’s mobile phone era, while studying in Stockholm University. Courses that he taught at Stockholm included Chinese History, Chinese Philosophy and General Knowledge of China. His major academic interests were in Language Philosophy and Ancient Chinese Political and Strategic Thinking