New Asia College The Chinese University of Hong Kong eNewsletter

Permanently endowed by the Dato' Wong Kwing-keung Fund, the "New Asia Lectures on Contemporary China 2019/20" was held in Sir Run Run Shaw Hall, CUHK on 1 November. Renowned columnist and veteran banker Mr. Jonathan Cheung was invited to give a talk on " Insight into Global Situation from History: Understanding China's Current Situation and Its Foreign Relationship". Mr. Cheung shared his analysis on the development of modern China and presented his viewpoints and observations. This lecture was hosted by Professor Wong Si-lon Seanon of the Department of Government and Public Administration, CUHK.

Mr. Cheung graduated from the New Asia College of CUHK in 1970 with a degree in Business Administration, and had long worked for banks in Europe and Asia. After his retirement, he had served as lecturer and professor for the CUHK Business School and other higher education institutions, and frequently gave talks in mainland China.

In this talk, Mr. Cheung analysed the changes of China from economic and diplomatic perspectives. He remarked that there were currently ten major global trends, one of which was the "awakening of China". The leap of China's economy had made China the second largest economy in the world, showing a tremendous improvement over the situation in 1952. He warned, however, that the contemporary China still had to face a number of challenges, including the rivalry between China and the U.S., the global trade recession, the technology race, the emergence of shadow banking and local debts, and the disruptions in the development of Huawei and artificial intelligence (AI).