In the International Herald Tribune, Howard French writes about Justin Lin Yifu, the new chief economist for the World Bank:
A quick look at his résumé suggests that Justin Lin Yifu is just the kind of person one would expect to occupy a top job in one of the most important global financial institutions, the World Bank.
Lin has a clutch of degrees, including a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago. He founded a prestigious economic research institute in China, his home country. And the man who is about to be named as the World Bank’s chief economist has, appropriately, published a slew of scholarly articles.
But that is not the half of the story. Lin defected from the Taiwan Army in 1979, swimming to China, the country that he longed to make “prosperous and powerful.” Those were bold dreams coming the very year when Beijing began its market reforms, and just three years after the Cultural Revolution, the decade in which thousands died fleeing China.
