ChinaFile Presents: The End of China’s Economic Miracle? A Discussion with ‘Financial Times’ Writers

NEW YORK, April 20, 2016 — Jamil Anderlini, Lucy Hornby, and Richard McGregor of the Financial Times, Orville Schell, and George Soros discussed how rising wages, labor shortages, and lesser returns on investment have contributed to China's economic slowdown. The panel discussion and Q&A session were accompanied by the presentation of a short documentary produced by the Financial Times: The End of China's Economic Miracle. (1 hr., 9 min.)

For decades, China’s economic growth has awed the world. But over the past year in particular, declining growth rates, precipitous plunges in the stock market, and uncertainty over the speed with which China’s leaders will carry out reforms are causing many observers to question whether China’s boom years are coming to an end. The Financial Times has covered the China slowdown closely, most recently with an original short documentary film, "The End of the Chinese Miracle." The film shows how rural to urban migration—one of the chief engines of China’s explosive growth—has slowed significantly, manufacturing wages are on the rise, and international factories are beginning to relocate to countries with cheaper, more plentiful labor.

Join Financial Times Asia Editor Jamil Anderlini; former Washington and Beijing Bureau Chief Richard McGregor; China Correspondent Lucy Hornby, and financier, philanthropist, and frequent Financial Times columnist George Soros for a discussion of these changes and a look at China’s economic prospects in the coming years, moderated by Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations Orville Schell.

Jamil Anderlini has been the Financial Times Asia Editor since 2015, and a former FT Beijing Correspondent, Deputy Beijing Bureau Chief, and Beijing Bureau Chief. Prior to joining the FT, he was Beijing Business Correspondent for the South China Morning Post and Chief Editor of the China Economic Review. Anderlini was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and received the Orwell Prize. He is the author of the e-book The Bo Xilai Scandal.

Richard McGregor is the former Washington and Beijing Bureau Chief for The Financial Times. He is the author of the book The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers.

Lucy Hornby is China correspondent for the Financial Times, based in Beijing. Previously, she was a reporter for Reuters from Beijing and Shanghai. She also covered energy markets in Singapore and Latin America.

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC and the Open Society Foundations. He has spent decades fostering democratic and social reforms around the world. His efforts have included a long list of countries in political and economic transition—from his native Hungary to the former Soviet Union, from Indonesia to Myanmar, and many more.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society, is a long-time China observer, journalist, and former Dean and Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of numerous books on China, most recently Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century.

The event, co-hosted by ChinaFile and The Financial Times, will also include a screening of the Financial Times original short documentary film, "The End of the Chinese Miracle."

Recommended Reading:

"Is George Soros Right that China’s Headed for a Hard Landing?," ChinaFile, January 27, 2016

"End of the Migrant Miracle," Financial Times