Shaomin Li to Speak

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August  21, 2007

Public Information
(417) 625-9399

Dr. Shaomin Lin

JOPLIN, MO (SNS) – Dr. Shaomin Li, professor of international business at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, will present the opening two lectures in the China Semester at Missouri Southern State University. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

•   “In the Eye of the Hurricane,” will take place at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 28 in Webster Hall Auditorium. 

In this presentation, Dr. Li will take the audience through China’s modern history, blended with his experience as a farm boy, artist, a participant in the post-Mao reform, a student activist in the pro-democracy movement, a founding CEO of an IT firm, a political prisoner of China, and a scholar of international political economy. The lecture will discuss the causes and consequences of China’s “Great Leap Forward” from a revolutionary state to a red capitalist society, and its impact on the U.S. and the world. Historical and personal photos and art works by Dr. Li will be shown.

•  The second presentation, “Why China Thrives Despite Corruption,” is slated for 11 a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 28 in Webster Hall Auditorium.

It is commonly believed that corruption distorts the allocation of resources by diverting much-needed capital from economic development into corrupt officials’ pockets. Thus high-level corruption in a country is considered detrimental to its economic growth. However, some countries, including China, have achieved rapid economic growth in spite of rampant corruption.

Dr. Li will describe the widely accepted view in China is that “power cannot be deposited in a bank, so you had better profit from it while you can.”

Born in China in 1956, Dr. Shaomin Li witnessed the rise of Mao, the Great Leap Forward and the subsequent famine (1958-1963), and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). With only three years of grade school, Dr. Li entered Peking University through self-learning and went on to receive his Ph.D. from Princeton.

 

In 2001, he was detained by the Chinese secret police for his pro-democracy activities.  Under strong condemnation from the international community and the heavy criticism from the U.S. government, the Chinese government released him after five months’ detention.