A series of reports issued by China's National Audit Office highlights problems in 19 counties that have received funding from national poverty alleviation programs. News of "impoverished counties’" constructing luxurious new government buildings or being ranked among China's "Top 100 Counties" raises questions about the state of China's poverty alleviation efforts.
Letters in response to: “China Strikes Back!” from the October 23, 2014 issue of The New York Review of Books.
To the Editors:
Deborah Seligsohn is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. Her research focuses on Chinese politics, U.S.-China relations, and energy and environmental politics in China and India. Prior to receiving her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego in 2018, she worked in both the NGO and government sectors on energy, climate, and the environment. From 2007 to 2012, she was based in Beijing as the Principal Advisor to the World Resources Institute’s China Energy and Climate Program. She also had over 20 years’ experience in the United States Department of State, working on energy and environment issues in China, India, Nepal, and New Zealand. Her most recent position was as Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Counselor in Beijing, 2003-2007. Her work has appeared in political science journals and through the World Resources Institute, as well as in The Washington Post, South China Morning Post, The Financial Times, and other publications.
Last week, Ann Carlson and Alex Wang, environmental experts at UCLA Law School, called the November 12 U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change "monumental." "No two countries are more important to tackling the problem than the largest carbon emitter over the past two centuries, the U.S., and the largest current emitter, China," they
The joint U.S.-China statement on climate change is both inspiring and historic. The two parties have sought common ground, set aside their differences, and put global interests first—as responsible great powers should.
Evan A. Feigenbaum is Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi on a dynamic region encompassing both East Asia and South Asia. He is also the 2019-2020 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Previously, Feigenbaum was Vice Chairman of the Paulson Institute.
Initially an academic, with a Ph. D. in Chinese politics from Stanford University, his work has since spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three regions of Asia—East, Central, and South.
From 2001 to 2009, he served at the U.S. State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, Member of the Policy Planning Staff with principal responsibility for East Asia and the Pacific, and as an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, with whom he worked closely in the development of the U.S.-China senior dialogue.
Outside of government, Feigenbaum has been Head of the Asia practice group at Eurasia Group, a global political risk consulting firm working principally for financial institutions and corporate clients; Senior Fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations; and taught at Harvard University, and at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He is the author of three books and monographs, most recently The United States in the New Asia, and numerous essays.
After Barack Obama's Air Force One touches down in Brisbane, and the American president fulfills the day's G20 obligations including the prime ministerial barbecue, Obama will make his way to Queensland University and deliver the sequel to the heralded "pivot" speech that he famously made to a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament House.
