Hongwei Ito in a new book that he will be working on called The Future of China’s Economy. Mr. Zhang is the author of the 2010 book The Rise of Red Cities. He has written two books, Red Cities Today: China’s Future and China’s Future.
The book deals with China from the perspective of the private sector; it looks at how the private sector has changed China from the mid-1990s onward. It also touches on the state-dominated urban system. Mr. Zhang is also an adviser to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
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The interview took place before a screening of a film that examines Mr. Zhang’s book. I watched the movie with Mr. Liu, the director, and in turn, I saw a film about the book and a film about Mr. Zhang’s book. The book is available in English and Chinese.
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In the second film, that I saw, Mr. Zhang was interviewed again. He is more lucid than he seems in the movie. I asked him to explain the book’s view that China’s economy is going to change dramatically because the current regulatory scheme seems doomed to fail.
Mr. Zhang asked me to show him the film. I opened it. To my surprise, the conversation moved from the film to the book. I then asked him to explain why he was not arguing more strongly that government and the private sector should be able to do what they like together.
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“The book is really full of contradictions,” Mr. Zhang said. “On one hand, it is about social change.” On the other hand, it is about economics.
“I didn’t make a decision to write this book for myself,” he said. “I am not anti-socialist, so I chose the anti-socialist route.”
Mr. Zhang then described a kind of ”