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NEW PERSPECTIVE: Professor Lin is expected to bring the outlook of a developing country into his new role. -- PHOTO: AFP
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PROFESSOR Justin Lin Yifu has become the first Chinese to be named the chief economist of the World Bank.
His appointment addresses criticism that the bank needs more senior management from developing countries and should be better attuned to emerging markets.
Prof Lin, founding director of the China Centre for Economic Research in Beijing, replaces Frenchman Francois Bourguignon.
He defected from Taiwan when he was 26 while serving as a company commander with the Taiwanese military stationed on Kinmen Island near the Chinese mainland.
On that night in May 1979, he tucked two basketballs under his arm and swam the 2km to the other side.
Already a star student in Taiwan, his rise following his defection was predictably fast.
He earned a master's in economics from Beijing University in 1982, and a doctorate at the University of Chicago - for decades the spiritual centre of free-market ideology - in 1986.
'He is a tireless teacher, and he has students everywhere,' said Mr Lu Feng, a long-time colleague.
'If he ends up getting the Nobel Prize for Economics, I think it will have something to do with that.'
Prof Lin, 55, has written extensively on China's economic reform and opening up to the outside world.
He is expected to bring to the bank the perspective of a developing country on agricultural issues.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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