In the four years since a State Council think tank, the Development Research Center, bluntly declared the failure of three decades of healthcare reform, China has placed a high political priority on designing, building and financing a modern, equitable health delivery system that serves every last one of its 1.3 billion people. As publisher of practice-building trade magazines for medical specialists in China and India, Jeffrey Parker has developed unique and valuable perspectives on what's wrong with China's healthcare system -- and how Indian practitioners are able to deliver results despite a per-capita GDP that is roughly half of China's. Through an unprecedented China-India training exchange, Mr. Parker has begun testing whether Indian models of self-financed grassroots medical startup practices can help doctors shake free of China’s Stalinist paralysis without having to wait for sweeping programmatic reforms that are always on the horizon, but seem never to come. What's more, would such grassroots empowerment models not create unprecedented opportunities for participation by international investors who up to now have been largely marginalized in China's healthcare development?

In this lunchtime colloquium, Mr. Parker reviews his experiences in China and India over the past six years and looks at several exciting recent developments in China. These include:

• An ambitious rural reimbursement scheme that already has begun to complete a nationwide healthcare safety net. The program is creating a vast pool of funds to finance rural medical services, but how will Beijing populate the countryside with sustainable grassroots practices?
• The first domestic healthcare IPO, by which Aier Ophthalmology raised some $50 million as one of 28 debut listings in the Shenzhen's new "ChiNext" Growth Enterprise Market. New wind in the sails of healthcare privatization?
• Licensing reforms that have begun delinking doctors' certification from their "work unit" hospitals under trials in Beijing and Yunnan, removing a vexing obstacle to hands-on surgical training of young practitioners. Will the breaking of senior doctors' "skills monopoly" create opportunities for private-sector training programs that will shake up China's Soviet-style residency programs?

Jeffrey Parker has lived in Greater China since 1990, first as a journalist and since 2003 as a publisher. His transition from chronicler of China's historic rise to active proponent of its economic development gives him a unique perspective on the opportunities still opening up in China -- and the challenges facing anyone keen to participate. With a twin B.A. in Asian Studies and Geography from U.C. Santa Barbara and Masters training in Journalism from Columbia University, Parker trimmed his sails for a China career from an early age. After early editorial jobs in New York and Washington, D.C., he was dispatched to Beijing by United Press International as senior correspondent in 1990. During the next 10 years with UPI and then Reuters, he covered a wide range of political, economic and social stories from postings in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Peoples Republic. In his final two years at Reuters, Parker got his first taste of media development, launching local-language multimedia news and video feeds in China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia. Since 2003, Parker has built up a family of world-class doctors' magazines serving more than 50,000 specialists in China and India from the Shanghai base of ILX Media Group, where he is editorial director, chief operating officer, a corporate director and investor. Among his objectives is to help foster a badly needed transformation of medical practice across China by inspiring grassroots doctors to deliver high-quality, cost-effective services in rural and less-developed communities left behind by government health care.

At the core of US-Taiwan-China relations, mistrust has long been, and remains today, the most difficult and elusive problem policy makers face. The danger is obvious given that the Taiwan Strait is the only place where the US could go to war with a nuclear armed great power.  In her talk, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker will examine the nature of US commitments, the intricacies of decision-making, the intentions of critical actors and the impact of Taiwan’s democratization.

Nancy Bernkopf Tucker is Professor of History at Georgetown University and the
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service . She also holds an appointment as a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is the author of Strait Talk: US-Taiwan Relations and the China Crisis (Harvard, 2009), Uncertain Friendships: Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States (Columbia, 2006), Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949-50 (Columbia, 1983), and more than a dozen of book chapters, edited volumes and journal articles.

Professor Horrigan will be discussing recent developments in corporate governance, responsibility and sustainability under Anglo-american law. In particular, he will explain how Australia's embrace of the UK-Canadian institutional dialogue model will affect business, human rights, and corporate social responsibility. He will also be providing an update from the recent UN Secretary-General's Special Representative business and human rights session in Toronto.

Professor Bryan Horrigan is currently the Louis Waller Chair of Law and Associate Dean (Research) at Monash University’s Faculty of Law in Melbourne, Australia.  He is also a long-standing law firm consultant in business and governmental areas of law and practice.

Professor Horrigan completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Queensland and holds a doctorate in law from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He has held academic and research leadership positions previously at a number of Australian universities, including Director of the National Centre for Corporate Law and Policy Research, Deputy Director of the National Institute for Governance, and Foundation Co-Director of the Centre for Comparative Law, History, and Governance.

His most recent book in the area of corporate responsibility and governance, Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century: Debates, Models, and Practices Across Government, Law, and Business, is to published internationally by UK-based Edward Elgar Publishing in the latter part of 2009.  The book was commenced during his time as a Visiting Scholar at the Wharton Business School.