Yao Yang is one of China’s leading economists. As dean of Peking University’s National School of Development and director of the school’s Center for Economic Research, Yao has put a priority on research to further China’s economic and political development. As he explains in the interview below, top academics in China have a closer relationship with the government than do similar academics in the U.S. He is a member of the Chinese Economist 50 Forum, whose members often play significant government roles, and also a member of the Theoretic Economics Committee at China’s governing State Council. Long seen as an economic reformer, Yao got his PhD at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and participates in so-called "Track Two" talks between academics and former government officials in the U.S. and China and aimed at trying to improve relations between the two countries. Yao Yang.Illustration by Lauren Crow Q: Let’s start with what I’d call the China-Russia allia