On the afternoon of April 26, 2024, the 26th lecture of the "Liangxiang Forum Lecture" of the Institute for International and Area Studies of Tsinghua University was held online, with the theme of "Catching Up in Value Chains: New Developments in the Textiles and Clothing Industry in Asia". The lecture was given by Rajah Rasiah, Executive Director of the Institute of Asia-Europe Studies of the University of Malaya, Distinguished Professor of Economics, former Dean of the School of Economics and Management, and member of the Five-member Group of Special Advisors to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Ministry of Finance. Zhang Miao, Vice Dean of the School of International Relations/Nanyang Institute of Xiamen University, participated in the discussion, and Li Yuqing, Assistant Researcher of the Institute of International and Regional Studies of Tsinghua University, hosted the lecture. Teachers and students of the Institute of Regional Studies, scholars and students from various universities at home and abroad, and people interested in related topics attended the lecture.
At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Rajah introduced several mainstream theories to explain globalization by referring to the major exporting countries of clothing and textiles, and analyzed the various driving factors of the global value chain using the clothing industry and the electronics industry as examples. Then, Professor Rajah shared the challenges and opportunities brought to the global value chain by the global financial crisis (GFC) and the subsequent COVID-19 crisis. Finally, he used the "Systemic Quad" model to systematically analyze the key driving forces of industrial upgrading of enterprises in Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, China, and South Korea, and put forward policy recommendations.
In the subsequent discussion, Associate Professor Miao Zhang, based on the views raised by Professor Rajah, supplemented the important role of labor-intensive industries represented by the clothing and textile industry in the early stages of economic development in Asian countries, and took the standardized production of China's clothing industry as an example to emphasize the significance of changes in the consumer market, production technology and government intervention for industrial upgrading. After the lecture, Professor Rajah and Associate Professor Miao Zhang responded to questions raised by the audience regarding the impact of artificial intelligence on the clothing and textile industry and the development prospects of the Asian electronics industry.
Rajah Rasiah is a distinguished professor of economics and executive director of the Institute of Asia and Europe Studies at the University of Malaya. He is also a member of the five-member special advisory group to the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Ministry of Finance, and is a Dato' and a member of the Malaysian Academy of Sciences. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Malaya, the first Khazanah Holdings Chair Professor, the Rajawali Fellow at Harvard University, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Management and Development at the University of Oxford, and a professorial fellow at the Center for Emerging Nations Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on technological progress and industrial development in latecomer countries (especially semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and automobiles). He is also the main author of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization's 2009 flagship report and one of the editors of the UNESCO 2015 Science Report. He has published more than 280 academic articles or policy reports of various types, and his works have appeared in internationally renowned journals or have been published by world-class publishers. In 2014, he won the Celso Furtado Award from the World Academy of Sciences (formerly the Third World Academy of Sciences) for advancing the forefront of economic thought. In 2017, he won the Outstanding Professor in Economics from the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia, and was awarded the Malaysian Merdeka Award in 2018.
Miao Zhang is an associate professor and vice dean of the School of International Relations/Nanyang Research Institute of Xiamen University. He is currently engaged in the study of the international political economy of China's investment in Southeast Asia. He has published an academic monograph and more than ten SSCI papers. He has presided over nine scientific research projects, including the National Social Science Fund, the Ministry of Education's regional country, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the ASEAN East Asia Economic Research Institute (ERIA). He is a high-level talent in Fujian Province and Xiamen City.
Editor: Changhan Cao
Proofreader: Southeast Asian Studies group
