 Thank you, Brandon, that was a nice introduction. I'm very pleased to return to this platform and the forum to share some of my views on China with all of you. Last time was in September last year. Well, a couple of months ago when I mentioned to Brandon, OK, there's a new book called Rising China in a Changing World Economy. Then Brandon suddenly proposed that you should launch your book. I said, that's not my book. I only edit. Oh, editing is very important. So then when I really looked at the book again, it's not my editing is important. Really, some contributors cross the world. They express their valuable views. On China and the integration of China with the rest of the world. That is important. So during the next half an hour or so, I just would like to quickly go through with you obviously the launch, the book launch. I have to give you a very brief instruction of the book, what it's about. Then I quickly move on to the reflections on the current crisis. So that's probably very briefly. Then we come to the China, the Chinese economy, its current position and the problems with Chinese economy and the prospects of the Chinese economy in the near future. So eventually to give you some concluding remark. OK, this is the book published last month by Francis Taylor. Yes, the origins of the book, as I already mentioned, Brandon mentioned, this is really from the two conferences. I have been involved and organized these two conferences. One in Dublin, that is the theme of the conference, China and the Changing Landscape of the World Economy. That was in Dublin. Another conference we jointly organized with Renmin University of China in Beijing, which the title is more kind of sexy. So China and the Changing Landscape of the World Economy. Confucianism and the Financial Crisis Management in Beijing. So really that two conferences attended by more than 200 people and we received more than 140 papers altogether. So this book altogether, 16 chapters, really selected from all those 140 submissions. Then if you ask the book really, I think, collectively from contributors, the volume itself provides a comprehensive analysis of important issues concerning China's economic development and its integration with the changing world. Really after I finished the editing of this book, I have been reading and thinking about the current economic crisis. So some good articles, some good books I think I have read and some of my initial thoughts I would like just to share with you here. As I said, just quickly touch upon some good conclusions or views on the current economic recession. So this one, I don't know how many of you, this must be a Portuguese language. I have never tried to even pronounce it. But let's say Luis Carlos, right? He is the former Minister of Finance of Brazil. So he published intensively on the current, his views on the current crisis, what caused the current crisis. So those two really quote I think, which I would, I admire he could put this together nicely with the argument. For instance, if we look back the previous, the great depression in the 30s of last century, then really the lessons of the last century great recession were transformed into a series of institutions, right? Which really led almost 30 years glorious of capitalism. So let's look back in 1944 when the Brandon Woods system was established. By then, US became dominant and the US dollars became dominant currency in the world. So that kind of convention, that kind of institution and the theory really led 30 years of glorious until 70s, like mid of 70s. So the capitalism really, what we call the golden age after the great depression from the 30s in last century. Then starting from 70s, after 30 years glorious years, then you have this what we call new liberal years of capitalism. So then deregulation and financial innovation really got in the way as a kind of mainstream supported by new classical economists or theory. So that's really we call that 60 years you can divide 30, 30 years in between. Then a lot of scholars and economists that start to question the fundamental flaws of the economic theory. If nobody knew classical economic theory, if nobody could predict this current financial crisis and led to consequently this financial economic recession, then that means something wrong with your theory. So that's exactly this Professor Steve King who came here twice to give a talk on his theory debunking economics. So I'm not going to go through in his book in detail, but anyway he questioning fundamentally even from the demand curve supply curve wouldn't exist in the real world. So then you have American economists like the failure of the capitalism is quite popular as well. To question again the new classic theory that has really dominated starting from mid of last century up until the late 70s. So this is in theory. What about in reality or in practice? We all know starting from 1944, I just give probably one simple example that would make things more easier without getting into a much detailed explanation. Let's take a US dollar as an example. In 1944, through this Brandon Woods system, so US dollar really replaced Sterling Ponds as the reserve currency, world reserve currency. Then obviously through that system there wasn't much wrong with it. But up until like the 70s in 1971, sorry. In 1971, what's so-called Nixon shock. So the United States decided decoupled of the currency, the pact between currency and the gold. So what happened since then? Then we now should asking or we should question. If the US dollars as a currency, as a dominant reserve currency in the world, then when we trade with US, what you exchange is the printing note. So that's, again, a fundamental problem now we are facing. I think more and more people in the world now realize, if you exchange your real service and the goods with this printed paper without kind of gold pact with it, that means the US could exchange or get any resources without really real value behind it to assurance. This kind of assurance is not there anymore. So once they further like Ann Lee published her book, What the US Can Learn from China, she argued that is no different from colonialist extracting resources from the colonies for practically nothing. You just printing costs. If you take China as an example, for instance, China really pumped back like 1 trillion US dollars of its foreign reserve into United States. The majority of them really what China did bought United States Treasury bills. So with United States printing more green papers, then that means you devalued your trade reserves from China. What does that mean? Hundreds of millions of Chinese people work very, very hard, produce the goods or service in exchange with this US dollar as preserved trade currency. Then the Chinese people would like to see what the compensate we will get from our hard work, even polluted country. If the money is without kind of lasting store value, then nobody would agree to accept that money in exchange of real goods and the service. But if you look at current United States physical and monetary policy, they're printing more green papers. And their deficit actually runs into almost 100% of their GDP. That means 15 trillion. So that means the United States, as a banker of the world, they wouldn't take these kind of responsibilities for the rest of the world. You are the issuer of this currency. So that's another fundamental problem in the current world trade or financial system. Then China, obviously, started from 2008, really has been calling a new currency, which is called global currency, started from 2008. Then China, France, and also Brazil under the G20 framework at the G20 meetings, call for the new reform of IMF, especially the currency. So there is a kind of special drawing. Right currently IMF tried to put that mixed currency together as they reserve the currency. But that's a limited progress with the existing system of IMF. Europe and the United States dominant the voting power. China only got like 3.8% of the voting power. And who actually breaks country, they share very small voting power. So that's not right. So I don't think this is my really focus of today's talk about this book. Really, just to share with you some of my readings and my thinking about the crisis. So now let's come to the main topic, the Chinese economy. My view is if you don't know the history of China, that means you don't know the past. You don't understand the current situation of China. You don't understand the present. That means you cannot see the future of China. So that's why I think we should quickly go through this chart. Really, it's a fantastic chart really produced or created by Angus Matson who unfortunately died two years ago. So that's why the figure up till now is to a 2. If you, there's no, anyway. This really starts from year one to 2008. So this color represents China, and that different colors represent different countries. If you look at China, up until like 1820, that is early 19th century. So China almost produced like one third of the world GDP. Then what happened in 1870, that is after the European War, then foreigners invaded China. China actually fell into a kind of semi-colonies. So followed by the mass war, then we have the Second World War invaded by Japanese. So up until really here, that is the middle of last century when the communists came into power in 1949. So really China share in the world GDP is probably less than 5%. It's very small. That's like over 100 years. But within 30 years under Mao's era, Chairman Mao's era, that is China followed the former Soviet Union system, what we call the planning system or socialist planning system. So the share of GDP didn't change much up until the end of the 70s. China's world GDP probably is slightly less than 5% again. So really over the past 30 years, when Deng Xiaoping decided to open the door and start this economic reform. So that 30 years China really creates this miracle, what we call, so in the contemporary human history, long lasting sustained like high growth, almost 10% for over 30 years. That's the unique and it is economic miracle in human history. So what is China position now? From this table, you could say China either in terms of PPP or in terms of market exchange rates, China now is number two in the world. If it is PPP, it's almost two-thirds of US is talking about total GDP, the size of the GDP. But if it's a market exchange rate is only half for 50% of US total GDP. But that doesn't mean China is a rich country now. If you look, the reason is simple, if you look at the GDP per capita. So China still far behind, a lot of countries in 80 countries. China really is the first poor superpower in the human history. That means it's a powerful country in terms of total the power of GDP, but with full of poor people even in countryside. So that's the feature or nature of Chinese economy or China as a whole. So you have to bear that in mind, okay, this really tried to tell you over the past few years during the financial crisis and the consequences of this economic recession. So China has managed still very high growth rate during this economic crisis. So if you look at the first quarter of this year, China still managed like 8.1% GDP growth rate. Obviously, compared with the past few years, it's slower, but it's slower delivery by the central government. So this is in 2010, if you look at the contribution to the world GDP growth. So that's why people would say China is the engine of the world economy at the moment. So it's the highest percentage from China. So up till now what I have been saying is the speed, is the absolute value, and the GDP growth rate, right? But what about problems? What about the quality of this GDP growth? So China now is facing a lot of challenges and the problems. Just a few here, for instance, China in the past has been rely on as a high kind of asset investment into its economy, and also the percentage of consumption is quite low. Then the property bubble, people now are a bit worried, especially in the coastal areas. Then you have environmental issues, whether this is sustainable for the future. When I was in Slovakia to attend last weekend before, attend the Global Security Conference forum, the chairman asked me, I was one of the panelists, he actually lists all these problems. He said, now people are worried. If you said China is the engine of the world economy, but China is facing so many challenges. Whether China can sustain its high growth into the future. So the people are worried or concerned about China's future. So if you look at the next slide, we have more problems. China is facing with the new generation of this leadership, like that would happen at the end of this year. So they are facing more and tougher kind of difficulties and problems. I just pick up one problem, like aging problem, because of this one child policy in China. Now China already enjoyed its demographic dividends, which almost ended in 2010. Now starting from now on, that one child policy was introduced at the end of the 70s. So now on, really the dependent ratio will be increasing in China. So people did the projection probably after 2050, like 60% of Chinese people, either above 60 or lower than 16. So that's a dependent ratio is increasing. So the burden of Chinese economy will be becoming much higher compared with current. I really don't think I can go through those details or the problems. Yes, again, I invite this little man again. I think the last time I explained. So China really present, although China is facing all these problems, but people would ask China's economic miracle over the past 30 years, present really a serious kind of challenge to what we call conventional wisdom in the West. Conventional wisdom means a critical role of property rights protection, independent legal system, a democratic system with a check and the balance of the long term development. But if you look at China, China hasn't got all this. China even hasn't got like a developed modern financial system, right? But that was in the Western economists view that that is certainly absolutely vital important for your market economy, for your economic growth. No, China hasn't got all of that, but managed to have this more than 30 years sustainable growth. So that must be something good, must be something good within the system, up a line in the system, right? So my personal view again, so if you look at China, so like this little man. So in China, since the 70s, we copied and download market system. We tried from the planning system, the transformation from planning system to the market system. China hasn't produced a mature model yet because China is still in the process of transformation, right? So then during this transformation, China introduced an invisible hand that is a market, okay? So when I worked as a civil servant in a minister of commerce in 1982, from 1982 to 1988, I was experienced the change of this from planning to market. When I joined the ministry, every single product actually was planned by the ministry, by the planning commission, how much each province, each county produced and how much each county and the province consumed. That's all according to plan. I attend the last national state plan of this whole process. Then if you look at the right hand of this man, you know, Chinese government, if you like, we still have a powerful kind of government intervention, especially from the central government, you know, intervention. So that is a visible hand. So I believe this two hands working together is better than one, right? That's really, we come to the structuralist that the core question that is state in the market, the balance of the two, right? Then if you look at one leg, it's state-owned enterprises. So if you look at like top 500, a lot of them are state-owned enterprises list from China. You know, if you look at the top five banks like three from China, so state-owned enterprises now still play quite an important role in China, right? But on the other hand, we have private sector, we have different ownership to support the economy. So again, I think this is another feature of a different difference from the democratic or liberal, the neoliberal agenda. So this is my understanding of this kind of paradigm of China. Again, you know, China is still on a journey. Nobody would know from now on in 20 years time what kind of, you know, China, what kind of system or model China will be, as like nobody know from 20 years ago, you know, what current China would be. So a final touch, how much time? I have very good, very good, conscious, you know, in a classroom I often forgot my time. Then the people, in order to answer the question whether China could sustain such a fast growth into the future. So there are three kind of projections I listed here. They're all kind of very updated recent projections to China's economy. So one of them is from IMF, the second is World Bank published a huge report. How many pages? I guess all together probably almost 1,000 pages all together on China. And also that report really different from the previous all reports that worked with Chinese scholars together in the China Economic Research Center. So then Hu Wengang is another friend who is from Tsinghua and he published this book when I visited him last December. He gave it to me as China 2030. So these three latest kind of projections. So this is really IMF published last year. So according to IMF projection, so China will certainly surpass the United States in 2016. That means roughly in four or five years time. So China will become number one in terms of total GDP. This, I have to say this in purchase power part term, China will. This is from IMF projection. World Bank actually, as I said, produced a huge report. I only pick up a couple form here to present to you. This is kind of indicators or assumptions World Bank when they did their projection of China's economy. So all this, for instance, the GDP growth rates, they have a different rate here. Then other indicators are all important indicators for China in the future development. So I probably would just tell you, sorry. This is the comparison of the United States and China. The World Bank report said, okay, if you look at 2010 to 2020 and 2020 to 2030, they assume the lower scenario and the high scenario for China, both for China and for the United States. I calculated myself last night, after midnight. My brain probably wouldn't work very well. But if you look at the world GDP at the moment, it's about 70 trillion altogether. So China now, if you talk about PPP in terms of PPP, China now is about 11 trillion. So if you take the lowest, lowest projection of China growth rate, then in 2030, China would have 31 trillion. That means three times the current level. If you're talking about the highest level, it's about more than 50 trillion. Compared with the United States, I did the same calculation for the United States. The United States would have like a lower scenario of 21 trillion, the highest level of 27 trillion. That means use China's lower scenario against American high scenario, we still higher like 4 trillion in terms of absolute value compared with the United States. This is really World Bank's latest projection in the World Bank report. As I said, my friend Hu An Gang from Tsinghua University, he presented his projection in this book. They did nicely together with Angus Madison's kind of historical figure, used the same formula and consistent price at the 1990 US dollar. So then his report here, if you look at China, the third row from the top, in 1820, China produced one-third of world GDP. But in 2030, China actually regained such a position in the world as a percentage of the world GDP. Again, as I said, in 2030, China again will produce one-third of the world GDP. But I guess I mentioned this before. I have to remind you, economists always try to impress people by telling people what will happen in the future, then explain why it didn't. Well, that's come to my conclusion. I remember last time when I was here, together with a professor from University of Numeric. It's a professor of color. Yes, it's difficult. I have to learn some Irish. She actually concluded of her presentation. She said, with the question, can China save the world? Her answer was no. I agree with that, but I add another half sentence. But the world cannot be saved without China now. One more thing. I just recently read one line of the American poet, Emerson. He said, if two people read the same book, then there's a bond between them. In conclusion of this speech of launching my book, I would say if all of us in this room read the same book, then we establish a network of interest in China. Thank you.