This talk explores two basic roles of European political economy that deliberately and unintentionally resulted in the ‘great divergence’ and contrast this set of dynamics with the contemporary possibilities for Chinese political economy to harness its domestic developmental aspirations to a transformation of Eurasian economies from its own borders all the way into Europe.

R. Bin Wong is Distinguished Professor of History and since 2004 Director of the Asia Institute at UCLA. His research has examined Chinese patterns of political, economic and social change both within Asian regional contexts and compared with more familiar European patterns, as part of the larger scholarly efforts underway to make world history speak to contemporary conditions of globalization. He is author, co-author, and editor of several books, including "China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience" (Cornell University Press 1997) and (with Jean-Laurent Rosenthal) "Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe" (Harvard University Press 2011), along with some one hundred articles published in North America, East Asia and Europe. Since 2009 he has been a Distinguished Guest Professor at the Fudan University Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and on the Berggruen Center on Philosophy and Culture Academic Board. As a scholar working in four languages, Director Wong is acutely aware of the challenges of translation and comparative work. His decades of research on economic history and teaching in the U.S. and China have confirmed the necessity of studying development economics and political development in historical perspective in order to gain new insights.