The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law congratulates Belinda Tang for being awarded the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize for her original research on the implementation of female quota systems in electoral districts in Lesotho. Her honors thesis entitled, "Gender, Policy-making, and Politics: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in Lesotho," explored mandated quotas for female representation in electoral districts, combining intensive fieldwork and sophisticated econometric analysis. Tang’s research was conducted under the consultation of Jeremy Weinstein, FSI senior fellow, and Pascaline Dupas, associate professor of economics.

Belinda Tang won the David M. Kennedy Prize for her thesis work on female quota systems in local governments in Lesotho. Photo Credit: Alice Kada

Designed to address the issue of under-representation of women in local electoral districts in Lesotho - female quota systems- Tang concluded, actually decreased female favorability compared to those females who were freely elected into local seats. Tang also found that females experienced bargaining disadvantages compared to males in achieving local infrastructure projects, such as roads.

Four undergraduate Stanford students are awarded the Kennedy Prize each year for their outstanding honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, engineering and the applied sciences. Tang was recognized for her advanced and extensive research approach as well as her strong initiative in gathering and collecting data, despite several setbacks in Lesotho. After graduating this June in the department of economics, she will be working as a research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research.

Tang is part of a cohort of eight graduating CDDRL senior honors students who were recognized for their original and outstanding theses during a recent luncheon. Many past research projects have been published in distinguished journals and have informed policy on national and international levels, receiving wide recognition. Danna Seligman received the “Best Thesis Award” for her exemplary and original research on America’s political polarization entitled, “The Origins of Political Gridlock in the United States: Modeling Institutional Gridlock as Moral Hazard in the United States Congress.”

CDDRL recognized Danna Seligman with the "Best Thesis Award" under the CDDRL Senior Honors Program for her original work on the origins of policial gridlock in the United States Congress. She is seen here with Francis Fukuyama, advisor to the Senior Honors Program, and CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. Photo Credit: Alice Kada

The CDDRL Undergraduate Senior Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops, attend honors college in Washington, D.C., connect to the CDDRL research community, and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. The program is advised under the leadership of Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama.

Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in sub-Saharan Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan, Lesotho, Ghana, and Nepal, among others.  

A list of the 2014 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:

In early 2014, Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) launched a new organization structured to further increase the research support of our faculty and their teaching objectives. That group, called Centers and Initiatives for Research, Curriculum and Learning Experiences (CIRCLE), supports areas of academic focus including social innovation, entrepreneurship, value chain, data and analytics, and corporate governance, in addition to China-related work.

With staffing and a facility now grounded in Beijing, the GSB is transitioning management of our China initiatives to CIRCLE led by Wendy York-Fess, Assistant Dean and Executive Director. Within CIRCLE, Frank Hawke, located in Beijing, is the director of GSB China-related activities designed to continue the focus on building a bridge between China and Silicon Valley.

Going forward, updates on China programs will be communicated through other GSB online channels. Content hosted on this site will remain available, and we encourage you to engage with our rich library of videos, podcasts, and stories.

China 2.0 originated from within the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), which was active from 1998 through fall 2013. Led by faculty co-directors William F. Miller and Henry S. Rowen, with Associate Director Marguerite Gong Hancock, SPRIE was dedicated to the understanding and practice of innovation and entrepreneurship in leading regions around the world. SPRIE fulfilled its mission through interdisciplinary and international collaborative research, seminars and conferences, publications, and briefings for industry and government leaders.

“We are grateful to have made our home at two remarkable parts of Stanford, the Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center until 2011 and then the Graduate School of Business,” said Henry Rowen. William Miller added, “The impact of SPRIE’s work among leaders around the world has been made possible through wonderful relationships with faculty colleagues across the university and beyond, active Advisory Board members, generous donors, engaging alumni and students, strong corporate and government partners, and extraordinary staff.”

SPRIE’s work resulted in publications in journals and monographs, as well as three books published by Stanford: The Silicon Valley Edge (2000), Making IT: The Rise of Asia in High Tech (2006), and Greater China’s Quest for Innovation (2008), including editions in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. During the most recent phase of work, SPRIE included four major projects: the Silicon Valley Project, Smart Green Cities, the Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship, and China 2.0.

Through conferences at Stanford University and in Beijing, to date China 2.0 has engaged with more than 100 speakers, dozens of media, and more than 2,500 Stanford faculty, students, and alumni. China 2.0 seminars have enhanced student educational experiences and facilitated cross-campus faculty and student interaction. China 2.0 content has become part of our classrooms, online resources, and also reached hundreds of thousands of viewers in English and Chinese.

As part of the GSB reorganization, we are pleased to announce that Marguerite Gong Hancock is now the director for a new CIRCLE research effort called Stanford Project on Emerging Companies 2.0 (SPEC 2.0), where she will focus on supporting faculty research on entrepreneurship, as part of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

While our organization has changed, Stanford Graduate School of Business remains committed to bringing together executives, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers, academics and students through a number of existing and emerging programs related to innovation and entrepreneurship around the world.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, urged Korea to embrace diversity in order to achieve broader social integration in a keynote speech delivered at the Korea Forum 2014 in Seoul. Korea needs to shift its orientation to “respecting differences while maintaining shared goals," he said.

Mari Tanaka

Mari Tanaka1, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Stanford, has been named the Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia for 2014­–15. She will join the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center this fall, examining the effects of enterprise development and international trade in low-income countries.

The fellowship supports a Stanford predoctoral student researching topics related to contemporary political, economic and social change in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Tanaka’s dissertation focuses on the impact of Myanmar’s recent trade opening on local manufacturing firms. She is interested in how trade with the United States, European Union and Japanese buyers affects firms’ management practices and working conditions, particularly safety and health standards.

By analyzing data collected in about 400 firms in 2013–14, Tanaka plans to compare the evolutions of those measures in garment plants, an industry heavily affected by trade opening, to processed food plants, an industry little affected because of strict food regulations imposed by developed countries.

Tanaka is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in economics at Stanford. She holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Tokyo and a bachelor’s degree from the International Christian University, Japan.

South Korea held their regional elections on June 4th, not long after the Sewol ferry capsized and claimed the lives of many school-aged children. The ballot was largely viewed as a referendum on President Park Geun-hye’s response to the ferry tragedy. In the Economist, Shorentein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin says Ms. Park will likely take the poll results as an opportunity to reform.

In front of a packed audience at the Stanford Center at Peking University, Victor Koo, Chairman and CEO of Youku Tudou Inc., described the convergence of China and Silicon Valley in terms of innovation. "Success in China is a matter of localization," Koo commented in his keynote address at the 2014 China 2.0 Forum, because many industries remain fragmented at the local level. This fragmentation has necessitated the transformation of China's internet ecosystem into a hotbed of innovation, going a long way to catch up with Silicon Valley.

The convergence described by Koo also means that China's internet space and its players are increasingly globalized. WeChat, for instance, recently made headlines for its new partnership with LinkedIn in China. Hugo Barra, Vice President of Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone maker, shared the company's international expansion strategy. With its international headquarters in Singapore, Xiaomi is expanding into Singapore and plans for many more countries by the end of the year, the compant aspires to become a truly global company. Vaughan Smith, Vice President of Special Projects at Facebook, shared with the Forum audience how Facebook represents an opportunity for thousands of developers in China to reach a worldwide audience, citing the success of the game Family Farm, which was developed by Beijing-headquartered FunPlus and "has the highest retention rate" of any game on Facebook worldwide.

Shift to mobile

Arguably one of the most disruptive forces in the internet industry today, Koo explained how the shift to mobile is even more drastic in China, where hundreds of millions of people in rural areas and small cities have little access to personal computers and rely on smartphones to access the internet. In addition, the widespread use of public transportation in China, in contrast with America's car-centric culture, means that Chinese commuters spend much more time on their mobile phones.

Koo noted that various internet companies have struggled to adapt to mobile, while others such as Tencent's WeChat, have prospered. Valued at $30 billion, China's popular social media and messaging app counts around 300 million users and an expected revenue of $1.1 billion in 2014.

Yongfu Yu, CEO of UCWeb Inc., discussed how disruptive the shift to mobile could be in the near future, predicting that the surge in apps that has followed the shift to mobile will lead to the emergence of an "app browser," enabling the integration of all apps on a unified platform. In such a scenario, this 'mega app' would challenge traditional web browsers such as Firefox or Google Chrome.

The multi-screen internet

The ubiquity of mobile phones does not put an expiration date on the use of computers and TVs, according to Koo. Instead, it has led to the emergence of the multi-screen internet. This phenomenon is particularly visible in China, where users continuously switch from their mobile phones to computers and TVs, and vice versa. Think about this: these users watch a show on their smartphones or tablets in the subway as they commute to work, then resume the same show once at home on their TVs or computers. According to Koo, the multi-screen internet unequivocally represents one of the major changes that content strategists and marketers have to deal with.

The integration of offline and online

O2O (Online-to-Offline) is another key trend that is dramatically reshaping many industries and the internet industry worldwide, Koo said. For example, Captain America 2's promotion in China took place offline and online with a premiere in Beijing and content broadcast simultaneously on Youku Tudou.

The convergence of online and offline spaces is probably faster in China than anywhere else, noted Koo, due to the large number of sectors highly regulated by the government. The central role of the state in entire industries has left a void for private companies to fill since they don't have to compete with an incumbent offline company also competing in the online space. For this reason, Koo argued that "offline industries in China are changing much faster and in a more fundamental way than in developed countries like the United States."

The Obama administration’s policy of “re-balance” toward Asia, that began as early as 2009, is now increasingly under stress, as those in the region question American staying power and China emerges as a challenger to U.S. dominance. As the territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas in recent months have demonstrated, China’s relations with the region and the United States have become visibly strained, bringing the U.S. re-balance policy into question and raising concerns about security tensions and the danger of conflict. 

U.S.-China relations are heading, for the foreseeable future, into “a very scratchy time,” predicted Kenneth Lieberthal, a respected senior China scholar at The Brookings Institution, in his keynote speech delivered at the annual Oksenberg Lecture on June 3 at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Lieberthal told a standing room audience in Encina Hall that while the U.S. attempt to temper its relations with China and others has “worked quite well over time,” now, “at a geostrategic level, we seem to be sliding with increasing speed toward an inflection point in U.S.-China relations.”

Lieberthal was joined by a panel of China experts, including Cui Liru of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), and Stanford’s Karl Eikenberry and Thomas Fingar, distinguished fellows at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Jean C. Oi, director of the Stanford China Program.

The discussion was part of the Oksenberg Lecture, an annual dialogue that functions as a policy workshop on U.S.-Asia relations, named in honor of late professor and senior fellow Michel Oksenberg (1938–2001). Oksenberg was a noted China specialist, who served as a senior member of the National Security Council and is credited as the architect of the normalization of relations with China under the Carter administration in the late 1970s.

Points of tension in the U.S.-China relationship have been increasingly visible. Senior American officials have assailed China for its aggressive actions toward its neighbors over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and in South China Sea, including its latest altercations with Vietnam and the Philippines. The United States recently indicted five members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for carrying out cyber espionage against U.S. technology companies.

Incidents like these have prompted both countries to throw harsh words at each other, leading to a situation of brinkmanship. However, Lieberthal pointed out that tense relations between the United States and China are certainly not new. Most notably, relations took a nosedive in 1989 when China cracked down on democratization protests at Tiananmen Square, in 1999 after the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, and in 2008, in response to the global financial crisis.

The U.S.-China relationship has been riddled with periods of distrust in the past. But now, “the speed and scale of China’s economic growth, especially over the last two decades, has also increased concerns, on all sides, that the evolving distribution of power may create new frictions and suspicions,” Lieberthal said.

Yet, refusing to work with each other is not an option, the senior scholar, who also served in the Clinton administration, told the audience. Without the United States and China in conversation, progress in multilateral areas such as climate change and trade would falter, he argued. Given the two countries’ position as the world’s largest economies, the international system would effectively be constrained if the two were entrenched in long-term bitterness.

Lieberthal recognized the common admonition, “if we treat China as an enemy, it will surely become one,” saying this warning could be applied to both sides. China and the United States must make greater efforts to manage and mitigate tensions.

“The question is whether we can prevent bad things, not only specific conflicts, but the political tensions and politics that make cooperation on major issues very, very difficult at best.”

He then outlined a few steps that could help China and the United States sort out their disputes. His recommendations began with the need for strong determination on the part of top political leaders to move things forward and the importance of clear, consistent use of vocabulary when discussing issues.

As a final point, but one that was offered as a contingent factor to success, Lieberthal said U.S.-China relations and both countries’ roles in greater Asia will depend on “how effective each of us is in dealing with domestic reforms,” because, “that will determine how dynamic, how vibrant, how innovative, and how secure we feel.”

______________________________________________________ 

During the lecture, Ret. Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry shared his observations from the Shangri-La Dialogue, an inter-governmental security forum held from May 30 – June 1 in Singapore. The Dialogue has in recent years become a gathering of premiere defense ministers to discuss security issues in Track I and “quasi-track” meetings.

Afterward, Eikenberry talked with Shorenstein APARC about key highlights and implications that emerged from the Dialogue:

Shangri-La Dialogue

Photo credit: Flickr/The International Institute for Strategic Studies 

Media reported a tense environment overlaid the Dialogue. What was the general atmosphere there?

The remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue by Japanese Prime Minister Abe and U.S. Defense Secretary Hagel on the one hand, and Chinese General Wang Guanzhong, made clear very different views on the causes for tension surrounding various maritime sovereignty claims in the East and South China Seas. Still, if you read the full text of all three speeches and the Q&As that followed, there is still great emphasis placed on dialogue and common interests. And in the many meetings that took place between national delegations on the margins of the conference events, the emphasis was on cooperation. 

What revelations at the Dialogue were surprising?

I think the degree to which dissatisfaction with China’s assertive behavior in pursuing its maritime claims was expressed by many of the participants – not just the United States and Japan. Vietnam, the Philippines and India were explicit. Analysts have said the only China (through threatening behavior) could contain China by catalyzing a counterbalancing response. From the results of the Dialogue, I think this is correct.   

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe emphasized values and international law throughout his keynote speech. What is your take on this?

The Prime Minister did emphasize both democracy and rule of law during his prepared remarks and answers to questions from conference participants. He was drawing an obvious distinction between Japan’s and China’s political systems and commitment to approaches to resolving territorial disputes. I think the Prime Minister is trying to establish Japan as a leader in East and Southeast Asia, and wanted to make clear what he views as important differences between the Japanese and Chinese “models.” 

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel referenced China’s suspension of the U.S.-China Cyber Working Group. What direction do you think the cybersecurity dialogue will go now?

It was unfortunate that China suspended its participation in the U.S.-China Cyber Working Group after the U.S. Government’s indictment of five People’s Liberation Army officers for alleged cyber theft. The U.S. Government has been providing the PRC Government with evidence of cyber theft being conducted by entities in China and has failed to receive any meaningful response so the indictments seem warranted. It would seem that the Cyber Working Group is precisely the forum to discuss this matter and the many related to managing the cyber domain with agreed rules and procedures. Working Groups provide a forum to address disagreement and disputes. I think China’s response was counterproductive and hope the government will indicate a willingness to resume the dialogues in the near future.

Where do you see the regional security conversation heading next?

The risk is that security dialogues will be divided into two camps – one led by the United States and its close allies and partners, and the other by China – somewhat isolated at this time but seeking to entice Asian nations to bandwagon to its side. Perhaps further regional economic integration can facilitate a more common approach to security, but this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue is perhaps a warning that trends, for now, are not heading in a positive direction.

At every conference we attend, we hear statements from our colleagues like: “I study Left Behind Children, the most vulnerable children in China.”

Each year in the media, journalists write literally thousands of investigative reports about Left Behind Children. In nearly all of these articles, the reporter interviews young children that live with their grandparents because their parents are working far away in the city. The conclusion of these reports is almost always the same: Left Behind Children are one of China’s largest social problems. Society and the government need to pay special attention to them.

When you look at the websites of China’s ministries and their provincial/sub-provincial counterparts, one can find that more than 10 ministerial systems – among them the Ministry of Education; Ministry of Health; Center for Disease Control; Ministry of Civil Affairs; All China Women’s Federation and more – have special programs to meet the needs of China’s Left Behind Children: China’s so-called “most vulnerable children”.

With this background, let us be clear about the three main messages of this month’s column:

1. Left Behind Children are NOT the most vulnerable children in China.
2. Left Behind Children do NOT need any special treatment.
3. Policies that target Left Behind Children are misguided.

Wow!

(Is that what you are thinking?)

We actually have made these same statements at seminars in front of fellow academics, at meetings with NGOs, and in conversations with policy makers and government officials. Their responses are almost always the same: “Wow!”

Do we really believe these statements?

The answer is a “qualified yes.”

Yes: Because these are absolutely true statements. In almost every dimension that we can think of, Left Behind Children are not the most vulnerable children in China. Other children in poor rural areas (such as those who live with their parents) are in even greater need of more education; of better nutrition; of higher quality health care,

But, qualified: Because, while all of this is true, Left Behind Children are still vulnerable and in need of the nation’s support.

In other words, Left Behind Children are NOT the most vulnerable children in China. All children in poor rural areas are in need of more education, better nutrition, and higher quality health care. Left Behind Children certainly have tremendous needs. However, other children in poor rural areas—including children living with their parents—have either equal or even greater needs. And with all of the attention lavished on Left Behind Children, these other vulnerable children are being systematically overlooked.

We hope that the media, government policy makers, academics who work on under-resourced areas, and all concerned readers of CaiXin Magazine will take the time to read about the facts.

The facts will tell our story.

But, before we get into the facts, let’s take a minute to describe where the facts came from.

If you have been following our column since last fall, you know that our organization, the Rural Education Action Project (REAP), has been working in poor rural areas across Western China for the past ten years. Our mission is to help narrow the gap in education, nutrition and health between children in poor rural areas and children in the rest of China. To do so, we conduct “action research.” In carrying out action research, we not only identify the problems facing rural children and their families, we also experiment with solutions. Partnering with foundations, NGOs and government agencies (as well as implementing our own action research projects), we seek to find out what types of programs, projects and investments lead to improvements in rural education, nutrition and health … and which ones do not. We then work with government agencies to upscale the successful ones.

In the past we have worked on many issues: school nutrition, life counseling; computer assisted learning; infant nutrition; intestinal worms; poverty; school drop outs; and more. In total, over the past 10 years, we have conducted more than 20 action research projects in poor rural schools and villages. In conducting these in-the-field experiments and partnering with many creative and influential groups, we have discovered many new ways to help increase human capital in poor areas and have been associated with several successful efforts to upscale our small projects across whole counties, prefectures, provinces and indeed the whole country.

In the course of doing our work, we always evaluate our projects and seek to identify impact. And in carrying out these evaluations, we conduct a detailed baseline survey before each and every project. Not only were all of the samples randomly selected, we also know for each child what type of family he was living with: (1) Both mother and father live at home; (2) Mother living at home, father not living at home; (3) Father living at home, mother not living at home; (4) Left Behind Children (mother and father both live away from home). We have objective measures of 14 different outcomes, including health, nutrition, mental health, and many others. In total, our surveys include data from more than 130,000 children and their families

Armed with this data, our approach is simple: We will compare the nutrition, health and educational outcomes of children from Type 1 families (children living with both parents) to the outcomes of Type 4 families (where both parents live away from home and children are cared for by their grandparents or other relative—Left Behind Children).

As empirical economists, we like to let the data speak. What do the numbers say?

Nutrition

Both Left Behind Children and children living with both parents have the same incidence of anemia. A full 27 percent of both types of children are malnourished. Their levels of hemoglobin, a measure of iron deficiency, are also identical.

Health

The rates of stunting and wasting among Left Behind Children is not low. However, the weight for age indices (WAZ) and height for age indices (HAZ) are more favorable than those of Children Living with their Parents. The body mass indices of Left Behind Children also are more favorable than the body mass indices of Children Living with Their Parents.

In the case of intestinal worm infections there is even a larger gap. The prevalence of intestinal worm infections is high among Left Behind Children, at 25 percent. To be clear, this means that more than one out of four school-aged children live and go to school with worms in their intestines. However, the prevalence is even higher among children living with both parents: fully 39 percent are infected with worms.

Education

To compare the educational performance of Left Behind Children and children living with both parents, we gave standardized exams in math, Chinese language and English. These are the three main academic subjects that students must learn in the Chinese school system. In other work, REAP researchers have shown the huge gap between children from poor rural areas and children from China’s cities. We showed that, on average, children in poor rural areas perform much, much worse than children in urban areas. Poor rural children are nearly two years behind by the time they reach fourth grade.

So while all of the different subgroups of poor children perform poorly, on average, Left Behind Children actually outperform children living with both parents in all subjects. To be clear, the children who score the lowest on their math tests, their Chinese language tests, and their English tests are not Left Behind Children; they are children living with both parents.

These trends continue even as children get older. The drop out rate from junior high school (which is technically supposed to be zero) is equally high for children living with both parents as it is for Left Behind Children.

Mental Health

There is one set of outcomes for which Left Behind Children do show the most vulnerability: mental health. Around 37 percent of Left Behind Children had high levels of anxiety, and 33 percent were “lonely.” These levels were, indeed, higher (although only slightly higher) than those of children living with both parents.

The numbers have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. Left Behind Children are NOT the most vulnerable children in China. All children in poor rural areas are in need of more education, better nutrition, and higher quality health care. Left Behind Children have tremendous needs, no question. However, other children in poor rural areas—including children living with both parents—have equal or even greater needs.

What can we say about this message except: “Wow!”

A postscript: Resources versus Care

We really do not know why it is that, with the exception of mental health outcomes, Left Behind Children perform either equally as well or even better than children living with both parents in terms of nutrition, health and education. Our guess is that it is almost certainly because there is some sort of “care versus resources” tradeoff at play. Without question, children living with both parents receive more care than Left Behind Children. However, with the high and rising wage rates in China, if both parents of a Left Behind Child are working full time, they will have access to more resources than the families of children living with both parents. If both parents are working in the city, their monthly income will be much higher than a family in which both parents are working on the farm. Hence, it appears as if access to more resources helps, at least in part, to offset the negative effects of the absence of care.

And perhaps the care of Left Behind Children is not as bad as everyone thinks. In interview after interview with parents of Left Behind Children, parents told us that they would never leave their child at home if Grandma and/or Grandpa were not capable of giving quality care. So, it may be that the additional resources that are brought in by migrant parents coupled with care from capable grandparents are jointly enough to allow Left Behind Children to outperform (or match) children living with both parents in most measures of nutrition, health and education.

No matter the reason, it is clear that children living with both parents are being overlooked by the popular media, by policymakers, and by academics. While it is premature to suggest that Left Behind Children are no longer in need of help, it is equally unconscionable to imagine that rural children living with their parents are not in need of the same social assistance that is granted to Left Behind Children. We need to come up with a policy solution that will allow all poor children better access to the resources they need to thrive.

About this series:

REAP co-directors Scott Rozelle and Linxiu Zhang wrote a ten-part series for Caixin Magazine titled, "Inequality 2030: Glimmering Hope in China in a Future Facing Extreme Despair." See below for more columns in this series:

> Column 1: Why We Need to Worry About Inequality

> Column 2: China's Inequality Starts During the First 1,000 Days

> Column 3: Behind Before They Start - The Preschool Years (Part 1)

> Column 4: Behind Before They Start - The Preschool Years (Part 2) 

> Column 5: How to Cure China's Largest Epidemic

> Column 6: A Tale of Two Travesties

>Columns 7 & 8: China's Widest Divide

> Column 9: China's Most Vulnerable Children

> Column 10: Why Drop Out?

> Column 11: The Problem with Vocational Education

> Column 12: Reforming China's Vocational Schools (in Chinese)