CHINA CROSSROADS – The Story of China’s Economy as Told through the World’s Biggest Building

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019, 16:15 – 17:30

Simon Rabinovitch, Asia Economics Editor – The Economist

This talk is based on an essay in The Economist, published this week, which looks at China’s economy through the prism of the world’s biggest building. When the Global Centre, a shopping-plus-office development, opened in Chengdu in 2013, it was written off by many as a big waste. The story has since taken a series of surprising turns, some for the better, some for the worse. As our speaker Simon Rabinovitch writes in his essay, it is possible to see a microcosm of China’s economy in all its complexity—consumption, corruption, debt, innovation, state control and more—in this one building.

Simon Rabinovitch

Simon Rabinovitch is the Asia Economics Editor at the Economist, with a focus on China and other emerging markets in the region. He is the author of the essay in the Economist on China’s economy upon which this talk is based. Simon previously served as a correspondent with the Financial Times and Reuters in Beijing, Shanghai and London, reporting on finance and economics. He also fit in a brief stint as a table-tennis reporter during the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Outside of journalism, Simon is national secretary for the Rhodes Scholarships for China. Simon holds a bachelors degree from McGill University and an masters degree from the University of Oxford.

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