Open QuestionsYuen Yuen Ang on how China can turn ‘polycrisis’ into ‘polytunity’
The Johns Hopkins professor of political economy says Beijing’s ‘directed improvisation’ remains essential at a time when innovation is king
Yuen Yuen Ang is the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University. She is an influential scholar, writing extensively on China’s political and economic trajectory, its international relations and its adaptive development in a fragmented, unpredictable world. Originally from Singapore, her award-winning work includes the books How China Escaped the Poverty Trap and China’s Gilded Age.
As a professor based in the United States, do you think there is a general decline in knowledge about China there? Can that be attributed to the sharp drop in Americans studying in China?
To put things in historical context, I would point to my “grand teacher” Michel Oksenberg.