Harvard University Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

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The State of Taiwan Studies: A Roundtable Discussion on Methods and Directions Sep 05, 2021

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Panelists Jaw-Nian Huang, Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Development Studies, National Chengchi University, Taiwan Lawrence Zi-Qiao Yang, Assistant Professor, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan Kevin Wei Luo, Doctoral Fellow, Hou Family fellow in Taiwan Studies, Harvard University Lev Nachman, PhD in political science, UC Irvine Discussant Ching-fang Hsu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan This roundtable discussion brings together past and present Hou Family Doctoral Fellows in Taiwan Studies at the Fairbank Center, to discuss current methodological approaches and emerging thematic directions in the study of Taiwanese history, society, and politics. Bridging across disciplinary fields such as media studies, history, and political science, the panelists will share their research experiences amid resurging interest in Taiwan, and envision how this renewed conversation can help jumpstart the next generation of Taiwan studies.

Popularizing Law in China, with Jennifer Altehenger May 25, 2021

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How did the People's Republic of China popularize basic legal knowledge after its founding in 1949? Jennifer Altehenger, Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History and Associate Professor of Chinese History at the University of Oxford, explains how China's party-state attempted to mobilize ordinary citizens to learn laws during the early years of the Mao period (1949–1976) and in the decade after Mao’s death. Professor Altehenger is a historian of modern and contemporary China, in particular the history of materials and industrial design in Chinese politics and everyday life, the history of law, propaganda and information under Communist Party governance, and the history of political language and cultural production. Her first book, "Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1989" (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) is now available in paperback: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983854 The Harvard on China Podcast is hosted by James Gethyn Evans at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

How China Loses: The Pushback Against Chinese Global Ambitions, with Luke Patey May 18, 2021

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Speaker: Luke Patey, Senior Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies At a time when many are fixated on US-China strategic competition, how will China’s relations with the rest of the world shape its future power? From its Belt and Road Initiative linking Asia and Europe, to its “Made in China 2025” strategy to dominate high-tech industries, to its significant economic reach into Africa and Latin America, China appears primed to become the world’s dominant superpower. But China also faces considerable new risks and challenges. Drawing on studies of selected countries in East Africa, Latin America, Europe, and East Asia, Luke Patey will discuss how many countries are recognizing that relations with China can undermine their independence and competitiveness and are working together to recalibrate their engagement Dr. Luke Patey is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and Lead Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, University of Oxford. He is the author of the new book, How China Loses: The Pushback Against China’s Global Ambitions (Oxford University Press, 2021). His work focuses on the intersection of China’s trade, investment, and finance with its foreign and security policy. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Hindu, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. He holds a doctorate and MSc from the Copenhagen Business School and a bachelor's degree from Queen’s University. Patey’s last book was The New Kings of Crude: China, India, and the Global Struggle for Oil in Sudan and South Sudan (Hurst, 2014).

China and America: Is Peaceful Competition Possible?, with Wang Jisi May 18, 2021

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Speaker: Wang Jisi, Professor in the School of International Studies and president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University Wang Jisi is a professor in the School of International Studies and president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies(IISS), Peking University(PKU). He is honorary president of the Chinese Association for American Studies, and was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of China’s Foreign Ministry in 2008-2016. After working as a laborer in the Chinese countryside in 1968-78, Wang Jisi entered Peking University and obtained an MA degree there in 1983. He taught in Peking University’s Department of International Politics (1983-91), and then served as director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences until 2005. From 2005 to 2013, Wang Jisi served as dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. He was concurrently director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China from 2001 to 2009. Wang Jisi was a visiting fellow or visiting professor at Oxford University (1982-83), University of California at Berkeley (1984-85), University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (1990-91), and Claremont McKenna College in California (2001). He was invited as a Global Scholar by Princeton University in 2011-15 and spent 9 months in total there with the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has served as an adviser to a number of international institutions and journals, including the Asia Society Policy Institute, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo, the journal The American Interest, and the journal Global Asia. Professor Wang’s scholarly interests cover U.S. foreign policy, China’s foreign relations, Asian security, and global politics in general. He has published numerous works in these fields.

Rural Revitalization: China's "Ace" in Dealing with Western "Competition," with Xiaotong Feng Apr 27, 2021

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Speaker: Xiaotong Feng, Ph.D. Candidate, Communication University of China; Fairbank Center Visiting Scholar Discussant/Moderator: Michael Szonyi, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History; Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University In the past few years, even the most optimistic scholars will not deny that China’s relations with Western countries have encountered big difficulties. Whether China accepts this willingly or not, the external conditions needed to maintain China’s past economic growth model are now absent. The “Rural Revitalization” strategy promoted by Xi Jinping is generally regarded as an internal social governance issue, aimed at promoting social equity, balancing urban-rural differences, and protecting the natural environment. However, can “Rural Revitalization” also be seen as a strategy to help China cope with “competition” from Western countries? Can it reduce China’s dependence on the US dollar? Does it represent a new and unprecedented development model?

A World Safe for Autocracy, with Jessica Chen Weiss Apr 27, 2021

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Speaker: Jessica Chen Weiss, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University How does China’s domestic governance shape its foreign policy? What role do nationalism and ideology play in Beijing’s regional and global ambitions? The Chinese leadership has been at once a revisionist, defender, reformer, and free-rider in the international system—insisting rigidly on issues that are central to its domestic survival while showing flexibility on issues that are more peripheral. To illuminate this variation and prospects for conflict and cooperation, Weiss will discuss her new book project, which theorizes and illustrates the domestic-international linkages in Beijing’s approach to issues ranging from sovereignty and homeland disputes to climate change and COVID-19. Jessica Chen Weiss is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University. She is the author of Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, 2014). The dissertation on which it is based won the 2009 American Political Science Association Award for best dissertation in international relations, law, and politics. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in International Organization, China Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Security Studiesopens pdf file. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Cornell Einaudi Center, Cornell Center for Social Sciences, Uppsala University, Princeton-Harvard China & The World Program, Bradley Foundation, Fulbright-Hays program, and University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Weiss received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. Before joining Cornell, she was an assistant professor at Yale University (2009-2015) and founded FACES, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford, while an undergraduate at Stanford University. Learn more about her research and writing at www.jessicachenweiss.com.

China's Hukou System, with Martin K. Whyte Apr 26, 2021

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Speaker: Martin K. Whyte, John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Sociology, Emeritus, and former director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University As the People’s Republic of China has pursued economic development over the decades, a central dilemma concerns how to treat its massive rural population, and the extent to which its rural-origin citizens can contribute to, and benefit from, economic growth. In different time periods, there have been dramatic changes in the nature of rural-urban relations, often with paradoxical consequences for prospects for economic growth. The talk will examine the nature of rural-urban relations in different time periods, with a focus on post-1978 changes. The initial reforms, by freeing peasants from the “socialist serfdom” of the communes and allowing geographic mobility while maintaining the hukou system and systematic discrimination against those of rural origin, produced the primary engine of China’s post-1978 economic boom. However, by maintaining pernicious discrimination based upon hukou status, particularly regarding the educational opportunities of rural youths, China now faces a major human capital deficit that it is struggling to overcome. The talk concludes with a discussion of why it has been so hard to reform and eliminate hukou-based discrimination, and what more needs to be done for China to escape the “middle income trap” and continue its economic rise.

Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, with Angela Zhang Apr 26, 2021

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Speaker: Angela Zhang, Director of the Center for Chinese Law and Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong In this webinar, Angela Zhang will discuss her new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation (Oxford University Press). This book examines the unique ways in which China regulates and is regulated by foreign countries, revealing a ‘Chinese exceptionalism’ that is reshaping global antitrust regulation. Angela will provide a deep dive into Chinese bureaucratic politics while analyzing the power imbalances between businesses and the government in China. In addition to examining the challenges foreign multinationals have faced in complying with Chinese antitrust law, she will also explore the difficulties Chinese firms have encountered as U.S. and E.U. antitrust regulators tighten their scrutiny over Chinese businesses. Angela will conclude with her book’s implications for future Sino-American relations, as well as the recent events surrounding Ant Group’s IPO debacle and the Chinese regulation of big tech. Angela Zhang is an associate professor of law and the director of the Centre for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong. An award-winning legal scholar, Angela is a highly sought-after commentator on Chinese antitrust issues. Before joining the University of Hong Kong, Angela taught at King’s College London and practiced law for six years in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Angela received her LLB from Peking University and her LLM, JD, and JSD from the University of Chicago Law School. She wrote her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Judge Richard A. Posner. To learn more about Angela, please visit angelazhang.net. Part of the China Economy Series Presented via Zoom Webinar

Leveraging Liminality: Shenzhen and the Origins of China's Reform and Opening, with Taomo Zhou Apr 15, 2021

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Speaker: Taomo Zhou, Assistant Professor of History, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Immediately north of Hong Kong, Shenzhen is China’s most successful Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Commonly known as the “social laboratory” of reform and opening, Shenzhen was the foremost frontier for the People’s Republic’s adoption of market principles and entrance into the world economy in the late 1970s. This talk examines prototypes of the SEZ in Bao’an County, the precursor of Shenzhen during the Mao era (1949-1976). Between 1949 and 1978, Bao’an was a liminal space where state endeavors to establish a socialist economy were challenged by capitalist influences from the adjacent British Crown Colony. To create an enclave of exception to socialism, communist cadres in Bao’an promoted individualized, duty-free cross-border trade and informal foreign investment schemes as early as 1961. Although beholden to the inward-looking planned economy and stymied by radical leftist campaigns, these local improvisations formed the foundation for the SEZ—the very hallmark of Deng Xiaoping’s economic statecraft. Taomo Zhou is an Assistant Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, specializing in modern Chinese and Southeast Asian history. Taomo’s first book, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia and the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2019), was selected as one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs. Taomo is working on a new research project on Shenzhen—the first Special Economic Zone of China—and its connections with the Export Processing Zones and free ports across Southeast Asia. This research is funded by a Tier 1 grant from the Ministry of Education, Singapore.

China's Role in Global Finance, with Eswar Prasad Apr 15, 2021

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Speaker: Eswar Prasad, Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy, Cornell University; Senior Fellow and New Century Chair in International Economics, Brookings Institution; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research. This lecture will discuss China’s economic prospects, policies, and reforms, and their implications for its role in international finance. The lecture will cover China’s economy, financial markets, and the renminbi, and also touch upon the country’s new digital currency.

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