13th Five Year Plan - Deborah Seligsohn & Jack Zhang (十三五: China’s Development Roadmap)

Deborah and Jack unpacks the details and highlights of China’s latest five-year-plan, the most basic and authoritative document that charts out the country’s strategic vision, covering policies, measures and targets on domestic social issues, to the environment, to education and economic development.

The document is meant to mobilize the nation’s officials and state-owned enterprises to work jointly across the sectors and ministries on implementing the goals from the central to the provincial level. It is also a window into China’s policy formulation process and how their leaders are responding to complex domestic and international challenges. Today, we have two doctoral candidates in political science who have followed closely the 13th Five Year Plan that was recently ratified in Beijing. They will share with us their analysis on the significant policies in the plan and what story it tells us about China’s recent challenges and its hope for its future.

Deborah Seligsohn is a PhD candidate in political science and international relations here at UC San Diego. Her dissertation focuses on air pollution regulation in China and India. From 2007 to 2012 she was the Principal Advisor to the World Resources Institute’s China Energy and Environmental Program, based in Beijing. Deborah is a twenty-year veteran at the US Department of State, working on energy and environment issues in China, India, Nepal and New Zealand. Her most recent position at the State Department was as Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor in Beijing. Deborah has a master’s degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, and a BA from Harvard University in East Asian Studies. She blogs regularly at ChinaFAQs, ChinaFile and the Huffington Post and has been published in the New Scientist, the Financial Times and the South China Morning Post.

Jack Zhang is also a PhD candidate in political science and international relations at UC San Diego. His research interests lie at the intersection of international political economy and security, with a focus on contemporary China. Jack’s dissertation investigates the impact of interstate conflict on multinational firms operating in belligerent countries as well as the political strategies that these firms adopt to influence the policies of home and host governments. Jack argues that firms play a crucial and understudied role in commercial peace theories. His research seeks to explore their role as strategic actors in the politics of war and peace. Prior to coming to UC San Diego, Jack worked as a China researcher for the Eurasia Group in Washington, DC. He was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to conduct fieldwork in Beijing on the economic effects of political crises on China based foreign multinationals during the 2014-2015 academic year. He also serve as senior advisor to UC San Diego’s China Focus Blog and can be found on Twitter @HanFeiTzu

十三五 animated video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhLrHCKMqyM

State-media Infographic:
http://english.gov.cn/r/Pub/GOV/p1/Content/Policies/Images/2015/11/04/13th_plan_on_livelihood_%283%29.jpg

China 21 is produced by the 21st Century China Program, at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. This podcast features expert voices, insights and stories about China’s economy, politics, society, and the implications for international affairs. Learn more at china.ucsd.edu

This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Studio Ten300

• Host: Samuel Tsoi
• Editors: Mike Fausner, Anthony King
• Production Support: Lei Guang, Susan Shirk, Amy Robinson, Sarah Pfledderer, Michelle Fredricks
• Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project