Approved by the Ministry of Education, the International Conference “Visions of China's Future Governance: An International Perspective” was successfully held at Zhejiang University on June 22-23, 2019. The conference was hosted by the School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University and the editorial board of Journal of Chinese Governance. More than 100 scholars from tens of universities and institutions in China, the United States, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Austria, and Canada attended the conference.

 The opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held on the morning of June 22. Associate Professor Jessica C. Teets of Middlebury College and Professor GUO Sujian of Zhejiang University gave opening remarks. The conference is divided into three main sections: keynote speeches, Series panels of Chinese politics and governance, and series panels of Chinese governance in international relations. A total of 14 panels are held with rich content and theoretical perspectives.

Professor ZHU Feng from Nanjing University and Professor YU Jianxing from Zhejiang University gave keynote speeches respectively.

 Prof. YU Jianxing & Prof. ZHU Feng

Professor Zhu discussed the changes in Sino-US relations in the context of trade wars with the title of The Paradigm Change of Sino-US Relations in Trade Warfare and Science and Technology Warfare. He believes that the US policy toward China has undergone a historic change, and the normalization of comprehensive competition is becoming a new paradigm of Sino-US relations. The root cause of the change in US policy toward China is that Sino-US has formed a special relationship in the context of shrinking power. This is related to Trump's government policy and strategic choices, as well as profound changes in US domestic politics. American diplomacy is undergoing a profound transformation of internalization. Finally, Professor Zhu predicted the possible future direction of the trade war.

Professor Yu Jianxing gave a keynote speech titled “‘Complete in One Go Reform’: Experience from Zhejiang, Proposal for China.”. He summarized the common problems of global public management reform, namely the significant growth of departmental coordination costs and the neglect of the effectiveness of public service provision by the new public management movement. How to break through the dilemma of government-centric logic? A possible approach is “people-centric” public management. In the past two years, the “Complete in One Go” reform in Zhejiang Province has better reflected the above-mentioned characteristics of the people-centric public management, and to a certain extent has achieved the transformation from government-centric public management to people-centric public management. This provides empirical support for discussing the mechanisms for people-centric public management. Professor Yu believed that the reform experience has certain universality which provides a useful reference for the evolution of global public management theory and practice.

7 parallel panels of Chinese politics and governance. Panel themes include: Government Performance and Political Trust, Governance in Land Administration and Urbanization in China, Reconceptualizing State-Bureaucracy Relations in China, Governance Innovation, State-society relations and responsive governance, Managing the Military and State Cadres, Participatory Governance.

Themes of the 7 parallel panels of Chinese governance in international relations include: China’s Response to Nontraditional Security Dilemmas, China’s Global Strategies, Foreign Aid and Investment, China’s Geo-economic Strategy, New Trends in China’s Global Governance, Global Influence and Domestic Governance in China, Understanding the Belt and Road Initiative.

After all the sessions and discussions, Associate Professor Jessica C. Teets presided over the closing ceremony and expressed her gratitude to all the organizers and participants.