I’ve just arrived back in Beijing from Guangzhou, where I sat in on one day of the Centre for Free Enterprise‘s “Free Market Challenger”, which offers a chance for 20 bright South Korean university students to travel to China and view the workings of its economy up close. Throughout the five-day program, students visited Korean factories, heard lectures on free market economics, as well as did team planning exercises.
On the day I sat in, the students heard a very insightful lecture by the Lion Rock Institute’s Simon Lee on China’s economy, and specifically the question of whether it can be classified as capitalist or socialist. (His answer: it’s moving in the right direction.)
After lunch, we then traveled two hours outside of the city to visit the Posco steel manufacturer. Notwithstanding the lecture by the companiy’s President that was entirely in Korean (a language I understand two words of), the tour itself was fascinating, and is a reminder that teaching theoretical free market economics is buttressed by visits to actual firms and discussions with entrepreneurs.
The Center for Free Enterprise is an extremely impressive group, and as essentially the only free market think tank in South Korea (and, one can suppose, the entire Korean peninsula), its work is vitally important. The four staff members I had the pleasure of meeting on the trip (Choi Sung-No, Sin Jae-sup, Lee Hye-jin, and Kim Si-jeong) were wonderful hosts, and I hope to be able to work with them again sometime in the future.
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Hi Jude, you did not meet Chung-ho Kim yet? Yes, CFE is a great think tank, and its Pres., Chung-ho, is a very soft-spoken, always smiling guy.