China’s Growing Pains in the Free Market
Religion & Liberty Online

China’s Growing Pains in the Free Market

RomeReports, a television news agency focusing on the Vatican, covered the Acton Institute’s Rome conference on May 18: Family-Enterprise, Market Economies, and Poverty: The Asian Transformation.

The following RomeReports video is an excellent overview of some of the obstacles that China still faces if it expects to sustain its current economic success.

In the video Dr. Raquel Vaz-Pinto, a panelist from the Catholic University of Portugal and an expert on Chinese culture, spoke frankly about such issues, while criticizing the welfare time-bomb, the one-child policy, and the state of religious freedom in China while pleading for a more active Church in promoting a socially responsible economic culture.

Michael Severance

Michael Severance earned his B.A. in philosophy and humane letters from the University of San Francisco, where he also studied at the university's St. Ignatius Institute, a great books program. He then pursued his linguistic studies in Salamanca, Spain where he obtained his Advanced Diploma in Spanish from Spain's Ministry of Education before obtaining his M.A. in Philosophy and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford. While living in Italy, Michael has worked in various professional capacities in religious journalism, public relations, marketing, fundraising, as well as property redevelopment and management. As Istituto Acton's Operations Manager, Michael is responsible for helping to organize international conferences, increase private funding, as well as expand networking opportunities and relations among European businesses, media and religious communities, while managing the day-to-day operations of the Rome office.