Chinese Business Networks in Global and Comparative Perspective

Points of departure
Today, Chinese business operates throughout the world. It controls the economies of Taiwan, Hongkong, Singapore and Malaysia, plays a highly significant role in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and nurture the unprecedented economic growth taking place in the People's Republic of China. In addition, it has also started to penetrate Europe and North America.
The degree of Chinese economic expansion goes far beyond anything that seemed plausible twenty years ago. Constituting a challenge to policy-makers and business actors throughout the world, it also confronts scholars in the Social Sciences and the Humanities with the problem of explaining what is going on.
One distinct feature seems to be that Chinese business operations are closely interlinked across geographical boundaries and that the degree of political rapprochement and economic intercourse between different Chinese communities have both increased substantially during the past decade. What has been the actual role of business networks for the Chinese economic expansion? Can we really talk of a single Chinese business culture, or should Chinese business cultures be approached as a plurality? What are the inner workings of Chines businesses? How do we explain their competitiveness? Is it true - as some have argued - that Chinese capitalism constitutes a special category, i.e. that commercialism and traditionalism - and even socialism - have merged into a specific Chinese style of management and 'spirit of capitalism'? Are we witnessing a new phenomenon which the world has previously seen, or is- as others have argued - the Chinese path, after all, just one of many cases within a general pattern of historical development?

Scientific objectives
The aim of the workshop is to bring together the foremost academic specialists at an intercontinental meeting in order to establish where the frontiers of research on these issues are currently located, and to discuss research strategies enabling us to explain the powerful impact of Chinese-based business in Asia and globally better.
This can be realized through:

- a multi-disciplinary discussion involving collaboration between historians, scholars in cultural studies, and social scientists:
- a truly international discussion involving scholars from different parts of the world - not least from Asia itself. - A systematically applied comparative approach.

Recent years have witnessed a growing scholarly literature on the various overseas Chinese communities which operate within different political and social frameworks. The academic discussion has been intensified by the developments of economic reform in the People's Republic of China where, in turn, the conditions for entrepreneurship are vastly different. Research about Chinese communities in Europe and North America has started. All this as a whole provides a rich comparative material waiting to be utilized.
The focus of the workshop will be the contemporary situation. At the same time, however, a broad historical perspective is required in which the time dimension is brought in as an active component in the explanatory undertakings. The discussions are planned to be organized in three major panels:

- The internal structures and operations of Chinese business communities: How and through what means are Chinese entrepreneurs interlinked? How are entrepreneurial groups organized? What is the relationship between business and hierarchy? Between business and family? What are the similarities and differences between formal informal patterns of organization? What is the social and cultural fabric of the networks? How has Chinese entrepreneurship been socially and culturally constructed in different spatial contexts? - The relations of Chinese business communities to the surrounding of society: What relations do different Chinese entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial groups have to state? To the bureaucracy? To the labour force? To religious institutions? To other ethnic groups? To other business communities? - Factors and conditions linking and separating Chinese business communities. What patterns of business operations can be explained by a common cultural heritage? What can be explained by differing and changing political, social and economic factors? What experiences do entrepreneurs in the P.R.C. and the different overseas communities have in common and what separate them? What are the present and possible future relations between business in the P.R.C. and the 'diaspora'? What are particular local patterns of organization? What can be generalized at an international level?
The objective is that a discussion of these sets of questions will shed new light on the 'puzzle of China' and the 'puzzle' of Chinese-led economic development in East and Southeast Asia, and also contribute to the broader issue of how the current economic transformation process at a global level should be approached intellectually in an innovative way.

Research policy objectives
The long-term aim is that the workshop will be followed by the formulation of an intercontinental research programme to be carried out in collaboration between research teams from Asia, Europe, The U.S. and Australia. The European part of this programme will attempt to secure funding from the EU.
It is of strategic importance to locate the workshop in Beijing. This will contribute to making the ESF Asia- programme visible in Asia, and also demonstrate that one of the objectives of the programme is to enhance cooperation between European scholars and colleagues in Asia, Australia, and North America.

Organizing Institutions
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing & Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen, in collaboration with the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, East-West Center, Honolulu and possibly a few other research centres.