EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Economics 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 200 structures to secure business. The paper argues that the practices are the result of firm’s path dependence. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with local authorities, Russian managers of enterprises with Chinese investment and short talks with the Chinese owners conducted in Primorsky Krai in 2014–2015. The paper suggests that success of the firms lies in its history, management structure and relations with authori- ties. First, the paper describes historical background of the firms and its influence on the current development strategy. I conclude that the initial aim of the investment was to secure and diversify cross-border trade though now manufacturing or agriculture business in Russia has evolved in an independent activity. Due to the long interactions with the Russians, Chinese owners were well aware of local business climate, formal and informal rules. Second, I analyze the way the companies establish relations with local authorities of Russia (in the areas of firms’ investment) and China (in the areas of firms’ origin). Third, the paper explores the role of Russian management in the firm’s entry and survival. I come to the conclusion that local management is an important key to provide stable development if a company wants to conduct legal medium or large scale business in Russia. Ostrovskii Andrei (Institute for Far Eastern Studies, RAS) “Xiaokang” Society in China by 2020: Myth or Reality Key words: programs for regional development, “xiaokang” society, territories, economic develop- ment, coastal areas, inland areas In the beginning of the XXI century a gap between coastal and inland areas of China by level of economic development began to threaten economic and social stability of the country. Therefore the Chinese leadership promulgated new programs of regional development for every four territories — coastal, central, western and north-east regions. By these programs after the fullfillment of them it could be possible to decline a gap between regions by economic development and to achieve a goal to build “xiaokang” society by 2020 all over China. The analysis of social and economic development of China's regions in the XXI century after transi- tion from planned to market economy shows, that after adopting new programs for social and economic development of the territories coastal areas as earlier will be economic leaders of China and drag all other territories. New social and economic indicators like urbanization rate, rural and urban population income growth rate, education level, innovation development level, proposed by Chinese leadership, show both increasing gap between coastal and inland areas and large difficulties of regions trying to eliminate this gap. In future the process of successful social and economic development in China will depend on successful development of “poles of growth” in four regions. It will depend on the speed of dragging the whole region by these “poles of growth” and other regions of the country by the coastal region. In future there will be narrowing a gap between regions, and increasing the ratio of Western regions at the expense of energy resources output. Which will provide for the development of manufacturing industry in coastal areas. By 2020 China will become a country, where a part of provinces by GDP volume will be comparable with leading develioped countries like Jiangsu, Guangdong and Shandong, and another part of provinces with developing countries of higher level like Sichuan. Plekhanov Dmitriy (Institute for Complex Startegic Studies (ICSS)) Review of Academic Research on the Quality of China’s Official Statistics Key words: China, official statistics, statistical system, GDP, unemployment, industrial production As the role of China in the world economy is rising, attention to and interest in China’s official statistics is also on the rise. News announcements made by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) currently attract public attention all around the world. However, Chinese official statistics seem to have a serious ‘image’ problem, as news reports (especially in the western media) tend to depict official statistics of China as inaccurate and unreliable. As the Chinese economy is undergoing the process of transformation and rebalancing, the need in reliable and accurate statistical data becomes even more pronounced. This study presents a brief review of academic studies on the topic and provides the following results. Firstly, in the recent years researchers have