Much of today’s analysis on China can be lumped into two inconsistent and increasingly obsolete points of view. Realists call our attention to China’s growing economic and military power, predicting war. Meanwhile, we are reminded of China’s many profound challenges, leading some to conclude that collapse—economic, even political—is inevitable. Both narratives cannot be true. Neither, in fact, is likely to occur.
In this webinar, Prof. McCampbell points out the flaws which undermine the force of both the realist and the collapse points of view about China. Then, grounded in China’s history and culture, he introduces a new way of seeing China, its place in the world, and its likely trajectory. He suggests how the world, and especially the U.S., can protect its values and vital interests, avoid unnecessary conflict, and continue interacting with what is certain to be a changing, struggling, but ultimately modernizing China.
About the Speaker
Duncan J. McCampbell is an American lawyer and associate professor of international business and law at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. Following a career in private law practice, Prof. McCampbell joined West Publishing (now Thomson Reuters Legal), the world’s largest legal publisher. His work—much of it overseas—involved building new legal publishing businesses in the UK, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia. In his last overseas assignment, he was posted to Beijing in 2007 as managing director of TR’s China start-up, Westlaw China. Leaving business for academia, Prof. McCampbell became a tenured associate professor in the College of Management at Metropolitan State, where he teaches undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral courses in law, international business, and marketing, while serving as department chair. He teaches regularly in China, holding visiting scholar appointments at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, and at Huaihua University and Hunan Institute of Science and Technology in Hunan Province, PRC.