CUHK Research: Changing the world

Economy, highlights the importance of the collaboration with Tsinghua University for his research. “CUHK’s senior management are very supportive of the research centre. Vice- Chancellor and President Professor Rocky S. Tuan and his predecessor, Professor Joseph Sung Jao-yiu have taken part in activities organised by the centre,” Professor Song says. “Hong Kong enjoys a unique status under the One Country Two Systems framework. In Hong Kong, we can explain the complexity of the Chinese economy in ways that can be understood by westerners,” he says, adding that the city is still a crucial bridge between China and the rest of the world. In another paper co-authored in 2019, he made use of data such as value-added tax and electricity consumption to find out that China’s GDP growth had been overstated by 1.7 percentage points per year between 2008 and 2016. Professor Song noted that local governments had overstated their industrial production and investment, resulting in inflated national GDP growth rates. His work on demographic age structure, fiscal decentralisation, shadow banking, innovation and growth, the US-China trade war, and the digital economy is not only well cited in academia, but quoted by newspapers like The Economist , Financial Times , and The Wall Street Journal . combination of special deals and powerful local governments that underpinned China’s economic success over the past 30 years,” he says. ”It will help reduce misunderstanding between Beijing and Washington, and reduce the tension between the two superpowers by explaining the true dynamics behind China’s economic miracle.” The paper on “special deals” has been cited by international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the US Congress. He is adamant that CUHK provides an excellent environment for his study on the Chinese economy. “Apart from reading newspapers and academic journals, we need to see for ourselves by visiting the mainland. I have been travelling to various parts of the mainland to meet different people. It would be very difficult for me to do so if I were in the US,” he says. Hong Kong’s edge in studying the Chinese economy Professor Song, also Co-Director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong-Tsinghua University Joint Research Center for Chinese 52