On the evening of March 23, 2019, the"Hongru Forum, Jointly with CIFS Distinguished Lecture Series" wassuccessfully held in Academic Hall 206 of Central University of Finance andEconomics by the School of Finance and Hongru Education Foundation. ProfessorJoseph Stiglitz, Professor at Columbia University, the winner of 2001 Nobel Prizein Economics and former chief economist at the World Bank, was invited todeliver a keynote speech titled “The Challenges of Globalization in the 21stCentury”. The forum was hosted by Liqing ZHANG, Professor with the School ofFinance at the CUFE, Director of the Center for International FinancialStudies. A total of about 1,000 teachers, students of CUFE and audiences fromoutside the campus attended the forum.
XiuchaoHE, Secretary of Party Committee of CUFE, met with Professor Stiglitz beforethe keynote speech.
ProfessorLiqing ZHANG
Mr.Jincai CUI, Chairman of Hongru Financial Education Foundation
Professor Stiglitz mainly analyzed thecurrent problems and challenges of globalization and discussed related policyresponses. He has believed that the main problems, which globalization havebeen facing at present, include seven aspects, namely: (1) international traderules are mainly formulated by developed countries; (2) aggravating poverty inthe United States; (3) expanding income gap of countries; (4) the problem ofmanufacturing product growth; (5) the negotiation ofWTO rules; (6) the rebalancing of global trade; (7) environmental issues,climate issues, energy issues, health issues, etc. Professor Stiglitz made adeep analysis of these issues.
Professor Stiglitz
The development of economicglobalization in the 21st century not only faces many issues, but alsochallenges. Professor Stiglitz has believed that there are five majorchallenges: (1) developed countries are reluctant to rewrite rules in politicallevel; (2) differences in value system create trade barriers; (3) developingcountries such as China should sign investment agreement with caution; (4)global financial stability; (5) the challenges of monopoly, discrimination,political game, and data security broughtabout by the development of big data in the industry of e-commerce.
Despite problems and challenges,Professor Stiglitz has believed that we should still firmly advance theglobalization process. Healthy globalization should be more beneficial to allparties and be conducive to international cooperation alleviating the gapbetween the rich and the poor in the world.
In the subsequent round-table discussionwith Professor Liqing ZHANG, Professor Stiglitz talked about the future of theWTO. He has believed that the decision of President Trump to withdraw from theWTO is difficult to pass. The reform of the WTO is still an unclear issue atpresent, but in any case, the existence of such an international trading systemis very necessary. This unique discussion brought a lot of inspiration to theteachers, students and guests present.
Round-tableDiscussion between Professor Liqing ZHANG andProfessor Stiglitz
The Audiences
