Yves Tiberghien -Why Has the East Asian Covid Model Diverged over Delta and Omicron?
2022-01-31 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Speaker: Yves Tiberghien, Professor of Political Science; Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research, University of British Columbia
Moderator: Christina L. Davis, Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations; Professor of Government; Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
This seminar is part of the Special Series on Policy Innovations in Crises, supported by a grant from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP). Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; and the Takemi Program in International Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Presented via Zoom
Register at : https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMsdOqrqT8rGtGD48jFl-U4msV05QRhwBA0

Tatsuya Nakanishi - Chinese-Speaking Muslims’ Responses to Islamic Intellectual Trends from West, South and Central Asia during the Nineteenth Century
2022-01-26 16:00 - 17:30
Speaker: Tatsuya Nakanishi, Associate Professor, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: Ali Asani, Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Harvard University
HYI Visiting Scholars Talk
Presented via Zoom
Registration link: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEocuyrrDwiGdZ8o3s2RwLBWoSR8cKtEDE8
More information: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/chinese-speaking-muslims-responses-to-islamic-intellectual-trends-from-west-south-and-central-asia-during-the-nineteenth-century/

Yang Lichao - Children’s Dimensions of Poverty: Qualitative Studies in Urban China
2021-12-14 15:00 - 16:30
Speaker: Yang Lichao. Associate Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Management/School of Sociology, Beijing Normal University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: Nicole Newendorp, Lecturer on Social Studies, Harvard University
Poverty is multidimensional but with disagreement as to the most important dimensions. This is especially true of child poverty partly because children are seldom asked systematically to describe their experience of poverty. Fifty-five children, aged between eight and 12 and attending two schools in Hangzhou and Beijing China, each participated in several hours of interviews and discussion about experiencing poverty. Integrating their understanding with perspectives of parents and teachers suggests nine dimensions of poverty: four structural (material deprivation, limiting home environment, constrained education; restricted opportunities); three relational (violence, negative social relations, lack of confidence); and two core (shame; neglected agency).
More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/childrens-dimensions-of-poverty-qualitative-studies-in-urban-china/
Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar talk
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvcuyvrzgrG9CbnLONF4qml-Nh1KMCEHBA

Carla Nappi – How to Come Apart: Decomposing a History of Translation in China
2021-12-14 10:30 - 11:45
Speaker: Carla Nappi, The University of Pittsburgh
Check back soon for more information!
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sfuyuqzstHNLcP21UNFfqiHHReSkx1_H7
Part of the Science and Technology in Asia Seminar Series

Mengmeng Yang - The Syntax of “NP zhi (之) VP” in Old Chinese
2021-12-09 20:30 - 22:00
Speaker: Mengmeng Yang, Associate Research Professor, Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: C.-T. James Huang, Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University
This talk focuses on the syntax of the “NP zhi VP” (主之谓) structure (eg. 皮之不存,毛将安附?), which is one of the most typical and frequently used structures in Old Chinese. It is tentatively proposed that zhi, as a functional head, functions as a nonfinite INFL and projects a nonfinite clause in the form of “NP zhi VP”. According to this analysis, the syntactic difference between “NP zhi VP” and the canonical “NP VP” clause without zhi lies in the fact that the former is nonfinite whereas the latter is finite. If this analysis is on the right track, “NP zhi VP” and its counterparts like “NP VP” in Old Chinese, “NP de VP” (“NP 的 VP”) in Contemporary Chinese, as well as the gerundive V-ing structure and to-infinitive in English, can all be characterized as different instantiations of the abstract “NP F VP” structure (F=functional category). They differ from each other only in different values of F.
More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/the-syntax-of-np-zhi-%e4%b9%8b-vp-in-old-chinese/
Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar talk
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEvdeGrqTguH9xse7Os4eq446EqAXSItXWI

Wang Junyang - The State's Handling of Petitioners through the Judiciary since the Abolition of Re-education through labor system in China
2021-12-03 12:00 - 13:30
Speaker: Wang Junyang, Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Public Administration, Shandong University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: Yuhua Wang, Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government, Harvard University
Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar talk
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrdumuqzsoG9XHE9HvJVHOv09wnZ3-zQ6d

Honghong Tinn – Manufacturing Electronics in Taiwan, 1966-1975: Emulation, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
2021-11-30 10:30 - 11:45
Speaker: Honghong Tinn, University of Minnesota
Check back soon for more information!
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUoceChqTgvGNY7dLnS5_mIdbCPifM4qpy1
Part of the Science and Technology in Asia Seminar Series

Panel Discussion - Combatting Anti-Asian Racism and Misogyny: Perspectives from Harvard Alumni
2021-11-22 12:00 - 14:00
Speakers:
Kei Ashizawa (MC/MPA 2017) U.S – Japan Relations Community Organizer and Attorney at Law
Aaron Huang (MPP 2020) U.S. Foreign Service Officer
Jenny Lu Mallamo (MPP 2013) Deputy Director, Global Communications & Media Relations at Council on Foreign Relations
Rebecca Yang (MPP 2015) Business Advisor of U.S. Education & State and Local Government, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services
Moderator: Soojin Kwon (MPP) Managing Director, MBA Admissions and Student Experience, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
Welcoming Remarks: Jacy Su (MPP 2023)
This public discussion will highlight key challenges of racism, misogyny, and other discrimination faced by our Asian and Asian-American community from the perspective of Harvard alumni. The panel will share insights on their own experiences while here at Harvard, in the professional world, and relate what has changed over time – progress, regress – as well as highlight current work that remains to be done.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/3916364028803/WN_wtMS6kDITwea6x1Q6suTyA

Chih-ming Wang - Re-Articulations: Foreign Literature Studies in Taiwan
2021-11-18 12:00 - 13:30
Speaker: Chih-ming Wang, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: David Wang, Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
This talk revisits the institutional and intellectual history of foreign literature studies in Taiwan through the lenses of colonial modernity and traveling theory. It contends that the discipline of foreign literature studies is fundamentally a project of re-articulation—not only to introduce the Western canon in local contexts, but moreover to resignify it in the global/local nexus for social political transformations. It is particularly wedded to the formation of the Taiwan-China division born out of the civil war and Cold War contexts in 1949. To explain the political meanings of its discipline formations, I will focus on two examples: CT Hsia’s literary modernism as a form of anti-Romanticism in the Cold War era and the translation of subjectivity as zhutixing in the post-martial law Taiwan. Whereas Hsia in the 1950s intended literary criticism to be a means for political rectification in modern China, the translingual birth of zhutixing in the 1990s literalized the power of theory in the making of postcolonial Taiwan.
A Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar talk
Presented via Zoom
Register at https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEucOCpqTwiEtX3ewPRvf8kfFeqWZvmZKl7
More information: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/rearticulations-foreign-literature-studies-in-taiwan/

Panel Discussion - Taiwan Studies: New Questions and Challenges
2021-11-12 19:30 - 21:30
Speakers:
Kevin Luo 羅巍, Tsinghua University
Chih-Wei Chung 鍾秩維, Fu Jen Catholic University
Su-Yon Lee 李時雍, National Taiwan University
Jaewoong Jeon 全在雄, Harvard University
Lawrence Yang 楊子樵, Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
Cheng-Heng Lu 盧正恆, Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
Organizer:
David Der-wei Wang 王德威, Harvard University
A bilingual workshop sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and Hou Family Foundation
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sQ5ZItvGTXWJIg2wVNapuA

Panel Discussion - Gaming with Chinese Characteristics
2021-11-04 09:00 - 11:00
Speakers:
Heather Inwood, Cambridge University
Nakamura Akinori, Ritsumeikan University
Deng Jian, Peking University
Special Guest:
Zhu Jiayin, Founder/Editor of Chuapp
Organizers:
David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University
Yedong Sh-Chen, Harvard University
This panel is co-sponsored by the Harvard Provostial Fund for the Arts and Humanities and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. It is a part of the “mediAsia: topics in media and area studies” event series.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_C63RM8E3QWCwC7Y4R5J7TQ

Connecting the World-Island: What will China’s PEACE cable bring to Pakistan and East Africa?
2021-10-29 10:00 - 11:15
Speakers:
Motolani Agbebi, University teacher, Faculty of Management and Business, University of Tampere (Finland)
Tayyab Safdar, Post-Doctoral Researcher, East Asia Centre & Department of Politics, University of Virginia
Roxana Vatanparast, Affiliate, Center on Global Legal Transformation, Columbia Law School
Moderators:
Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
James Gethyn Evans, Communications Officer, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies; Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University
China’s Hengtong Group—leading a consortium of telecom companies from Hong Kong, Pakistan, and East Africa—will soon complete installation of the Pakistan East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable. Spanning the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, this cable will connect the three most populous continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, or what Halford Mackinder described as the “World Island.” The cable aims to provide these previously under-serviced regions with the shortest latency between routes and high-quality Internet, but what are China’s aims with the project and what benefits will it bring to partners in South Asia and Africa? This roundtable will discuss the technical, economic, and geopolitical implications of this flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OCG6SSfGQFKmBk-_edjqzw
Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness
2021-10-28 20:00 - 21:30
Speakers:
Manfred Elfstrom, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia.
Yao Li, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology and Law, University of Florida
Moderator: Anthony Saich, Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation; Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Strikes, protests, and riots by Chinese workers have been rising over the past decade. The state has addressed a number of grievances, yet has also come down increasingly hard on civil society groups pushing for reform. Why are these two seemingly clashing developments occurring simultaneously? Manfred Elfstrom uses extensive fieldwork and statistical analysis to examine both the causes and consequences of protest. The book adopts a holistic approach, encompassing national trends in worker–state relations, local policymaking processes and the dilemmas of individual officials and activists. Instead of taking sides in the old debate over whether non-democracies like China’s are on the verge of collapse or have instead found ways of maintaining their power indefinitely, it explores the daily evolution of autocratic rule. While providing a uniquely comprehensive picture of change in China, this important study proposes a new model of bottom-up change within authoritarian systems more generally.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/9016334418370/WN_kJ-DOLoORpel9R4nqRf0sg

Jie Li — Socialist Hot Noise: Loudspeakers and Open-Air Cinema in Mao’s China
2021-10-26 15:00 - 17:00
Speaker: Li Jie, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University
As a scholar of literary, film, and cultural studies, Jie Li’s research interests center on the mediation of memories in modern China. Her first book, Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life (Columbia, 2014), excavates a century of memories embedded in two alleyway neighborhoods destined for demolition. Her second monograph, Utopian Ruins: A Memorial Museum of the Mao Era (Duke University Press, 2020), explores contemporary cultural memories of the 1950s to the 1970s through textual, audiovisual, and material artifacts, including police files, photographs, documentary films, and museums. Li has co-edited a volume entitled Red Legacies: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution (Harvard Asia Center, 2016). Her current book project, Cinematic Guerrillas: Maoist Propaganda as a Spirit Medium explores film exhibition and reception in socialist China, including movie theatres and open-air screenings, projectionists and audiences, as well as memories of revolutionary and foreign films. Her other research projects include a transnational film history of Manchuria and a cultural history of noise in modern China.
Presented via Zoom
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMtf-ypqDIqH9XHuHa5_h4qWkMI_Rlu1N1W

David Cheng Chang - Escaping From the Communists and Then From the Anti-Communists: A Prisoner’s Odyssey From Southwest China to Korea, India, and Argentina
2021-10-13 10:00 - 11:30
Speaker: David Cheng Chang, Division of Humanities, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; HYI-Radcliffe Institute Fellow, 2021-22
Chair/discussant: Arunabh Ghosh, Associate Professor of History, Harvard University
By the end of the Korean War, only 88 out of more than 150,000 Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war (POWs) refused to return to either side of their divided countries; instead, they sought asylum in neutral nations. Using oral history interviews and archival documents from the United States, Taiwan, and India, this talk charts the life history of Cheng Liren: from his education as a police academy cadet during the civil war and his first job as a police officer in his home province Guizhou in the final days of the Nationalist regime, to his desperate enlistment in the Communist army, desertion in Korea, rise and fall as an anti-Communist POW leader on Koje and Cheju Islands, his daring escape from fellow anti-Communist POWs at Panmunjom, to his two-year sojourn in India, and his final settlement and business success in Argentina.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJItd-qurD8rGNJBFrr8tS6X1695eSvlSswX
More info: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/escaping-from-the-communists-and-then-from-the-anti-communists-a-prisoners-odyssey-from-southwest-china-to-korea-india-and-argentina/

The Taliban Takeover and Central Asian Security: What Will Russia and China Do?
2021-09-30 09:30 - 10:45
Speakers:
Andrey Kortunov, Director General, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC)
Yun Sun, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program, Stimson Center
Zuhra Halimova, Independent Consultant, Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Akram Umarov, Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh; Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, University of World Economy and Diplomacy
Moderators:
Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Edward Lemon, President & CEO, The Oxus Society
The withdrawal of U.S. forces and the speedy collapse of the Afghan government are creating a new security situation and transforming the geopolitical setting of Central Asia. Fears and concerns in the region are on the rise. What will Russia, the traditional security provider, and China, the emerging provider, do? How will they deal with these new challenges and opportunities? What are the choices facing Central Asian states, and how much room for maneuver do they have? This roundtable will discuss the current policies of Russia, China and Central Asian states, and possible scenarios for future developments and their implications for the region and Eurasia at large.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Mv_PAcweTuG1C7kYtYQxsQ

Yangyang Cheng - Those Who Fall Behind Get Beaten Up: Can Science Build a Strong China?
2021-09-28 10:30 - 11:45
Speaker: Yangyang Cheng, Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale Law School; Columnist at SupChina.
From the last Chinese empire to the current People’s Republic, generations of politicians and intellectuals have sought advanced science and technology to build a strong China. They pondered the relationship between East and West, tradition and modernity, national allegiance and cosmopolitan ideals. Their efforts have shaped the path of China’s development and mapped the contours of Chinese identity.
In this talk, I will trace their accomplishments and regrets, as well as lessons for today, through the lives of two men from my hometown of Hefei, born a century apart. One was late Qing’s most revered statesman. The other is one of the first two Nobel laureates from China. As the role of science and technology becomes one of the most contentious issues in U.S.-China relations, their stories teach about the forces that propelled China’s rise, the ways lives can be squeezed by geopolitics, and the risks of using science for state power.
Yangyang Cheng is a particle physicist and essayist. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, and ChinaFile, among other publications. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law School and a columnist at SupChina.|
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://asiacenter.harvard.edu/events/those-who-fallbehind-get-beaten-up-can-science-build-a-strong-china-1454
Part of the Science and Technology in Asia Seminar Series

Academic Jobs Outside of the United States
2021-08-12 20:00 - 22:00
Speakers:
Rowena He, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Taomo Zhou, Nanyang Technological University
Mary Brazelton, Cambridge University
Charles Chang, Duke Kunshan
Emily Baum (University of California, Irvine) and Denise Y. Ho (Yale University) present the second annual webinar series, Doing Chinese History (in a New Era). Designed for—but not exclusive to—graduate students and junior scholars in Chinese history and Chinese studies, these webinars aim to address persistent challenges in research and professional development.
Webinar 3 turns to the question of professional development and careers outside of American academia. The academic job market remains highly competitive, and in recent years newly-minted PhDs have sought jobs around the world, including in Europe and Asia. However, students trained in the United States may be less familiar with both the international job search and the culture of universities abroad. This webinar brings together four professors who have recently taken jobs in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK. They will discuss the application process, academic life at their university, and the challenges and opportunities of a different academic system.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f9iQ0uFQSrS9hAURtrpslg(link is external)

This series is sponsored by the Long US-China Institute (University of California, Irvine) and the Council on East Asian Studies (Yale University), with support from:

Hoover Institution, Project on China’s Global Sharp Power, Stanford University
Centre for Asian Research, York University
Department of History, Simon Fraser University
East Asian Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University
Institute of Asian Research, UBC
Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University
Fairbank Center, Harvard University
East Asian Studies Program, UC Santa Cruz
Global China Center, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong

Archives, Libraries, and Databases in Taiwan
2021-07-19 19:30 - 21:30
Speakers:
Feng-yuan Hsu, National Archives Administration
Shiuon Chu, Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History
Hsi-yuan Chen, Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology and Academia Sinica Center for Digital Cultures
Hsiao Ya-Hung, Academia Sinica, Institute of Modern History Archives
Moderator:
David Cheng Chang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Emily Baum (University of California, Irvine) and Denise Y. Ho (Yale University) present the second annual webinar series, Doing Chinese History (in a New Era). Designed for—but not exclusive to—graduate students and junior scholars in Chinese history and Chinese studies, these webinars aim to address persistent challenges in research and professional development.
Webinar 2 builds on the popularity of last year’s webinars—especially one on digital sources(link is external) and one on archives outside of China(link is external)—to focus on research in Taiwan. This year we feature four scholars who are professional archivists as well as historians and invite them to introduce archival, digital, and library resources in Taiwan. Featured collections include those of Academia Sinica and the National Archives Administration.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MrnuGNTpRtqNqTEeSYpMoQ(link is external)
This series is sponsored by the Long US-China Institute (University of California, Irvine) and the Council on East Asian Studies (Yale University), with support from:

Hoover Institution, Project on China’s Global Sharp Power, Stanford University
Centre for Asian Research, York University
Department of History, Simon Fraser University
East Asian Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University
Institute of Asian Research, UBC
Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University
Fairbank Center, Harvard University
East Asian Studies Program, UC Santa Cruz
Global China Center, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong

Pivoting to a New Research Topic
2021-06-28 19:30 - 21:30
Speakers:
Michael Collins, Yenching Academy (currently Council on Foreign Relations)
Bill Figueroa, University of Pennsylvania
Yi Ci Lo, UC Irvine
Tullia Fraser, Durham University (currently University of Hong Kong)

Emily Baum (University of California, Irvine) and Denise Y. Ho (Yale University) present the second annual webinar series, Doing Chinese History (in a New Era). Designed for—but not exclusive to—graduate students and junior scholars in Chinese history and Chinese studies, these webinars aim to address persistent challenges in research and professional development.
Webinar 1, “Pivoting to a New Research Topic,” features four speakers who are completing or have recently completed a thesis or dissertation, and who have had to adapt their topics because of changing research conditions. Facing restrictions on research travel and archival access, each of the speakers have modified their research agenda and made use of local and digital sources. This webinar addresses the challenge of the “research pivot,” offering advice and experience from current and recent graduate students.

Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://yale.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_COakdrS_Q8yIeroOQWB29Q(link is external)

This series is sponsored by the Long US-China Institute (University of California, Irvine) and the Council on East Asian Studies (Yale University), with support from:

Hoover Institution, Project on China’s Global Sharp Power, Stanford University
Centre for Asian Research, York University
Department of History, Simon Fraser University
East Asian Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University
Institute of Asian Research, UBC
Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University
Fairbank Center, Harvard University
East Asian Studies Program, UC Santa Cruz
Global China Center, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong

Arjun Subramaniam - A Military History of India Since 1972: Full Spectrum Operations and the Changing Contours of Modern Conflict
2021-06-24 10:00 - 11:15
Speaker: Arjun Subramaniam, Retired Air Vice Marshal, IAF; President’s Chair of Excellence in National Security, India’s National Defence College
Discussant: M. Taylor Fravel, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science; Director, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chair/Moderator: James Robson, James C. Kralik and YunliLou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Victor and William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center

Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://tinyurl.com/ctycbw69
Arjun Subramaniam is the President’s Chair of Excellence in National Security at NDC. He is a retired fighter pilot from the IAF who has flown MiG-21s and Mirage-2000s. He has commanded a MiG-21 Squadron and a large flying base and held several operational, staff, and instructional assignments in the IAF. He is an airpower doctrinal expert having crafted the current IAF doctrine in 2012. He was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal for distinguished service by the President of India in 2011. A Ph.D. in Defence and Strategic Studies from the Univ of Madras, he has been a Visiting Fellow at The Harvard Asia Center and Oxford Universities, and a Visiting Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Ashoka and Jindal Universities. Currently, he is also an Adjunct Faculty member at the Naval War College. He has lectured extensively at a wide range of Universities, think tanks, and war colleges in India and abroad including Harvard, MIT, Georgetown University, Oxford, Carnegie Endowment, and the International Institute of Strategic Studies. His current areas of focus are international and regional security, contemporary Indian military history, airpower in integrated operations, and the India-China security relationship. He is the author of four books including ‘India’s Wars: A Military History: 1947-1971’ and its newly-released sequel titled ‘A Military History of India since 1972: Full Spectrum Operations and the Changing Contours of Modern Conflict.’
M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. His books include Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes, (Princeton University Press, 2008), and Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019). His other publications have appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, International Studies Review, The China Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces & Society, Current History, Asian Survey, Asian Security, China Leadership Monitor, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D. He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation. Taylor is a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project.
James Robson is the James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the William Fung Director of the Harvard University Asia Center. He is also the Chair of the Regional Studies East Asia M.A. program. Robson received his Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Stanford University in 2002, after spending many years researching in China, Taiwan, and Japan. He specializes in the history of medieval Chinese Buddhism and Daoism and is particularly interested in issues of sacred geography, local religious history, and Chan/Zen Buddhism. He has been engaged in a long-term collaborative research project with the École Française d’Extrême-Orient studying local religious statuary from Hunan province. He is the author of Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak [Nanyue 南嶽] in Medieval China (Harvard, 2009), which was awarded the Stanislas Julien Prize for 2010 by the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres and the 2010 ToshihideNumata Book Prize in Buddhism. Robson is also the author of “Signs of Power: Talismanic Writings in Chinese Buddhism” (History of Religions 48:2), “Faith in Museums: On the Confluence of Museums and Religious Sites in Asia” (PMLA, 2010), and “A Tang Dynasty Chan Mummy [roushen] and a Modern Case of Furta Sacra? Investigating the Contested Bones of ShitouXiqian.” His current research includes a long-term project on the history of the confluence of Buddhist monasteries and mental hospitals in East Asia.

Meaningful Ageing: Shaping a Better Future for China’s Elderly
2021-06-21 08:00 - 2021-06-23 07:59
Monday, June 21, 2021 – 8:30-10:30 PM EDT
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 – 8:30-10:30 AM EDT
The challenges presented by the ageing of China’s population are vast and complex. Not only does ageing have major impacts on labor supply, savings, economic growth and social and family relationships, ageing also necessitates re-imagining social systems—such as healthcare, eldercare, pension and housing—in order to sustainably support the elderly population in ageing well and living a meaningful life in China. The government has made confronting these challenges a national policy priority, as seen in the 14th Five-Year Plan. The prominence of ageing in this national policy planning blueprint and the issue’s inclusion in subsequent talks by senior policymakers signify its importance for ensuring sustainable economic and social development into the future.
This event, hosted by the Harvard China Health Partnership and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, seeks to develop new and innovative ideas to help China develop a health and eldercare system to meet the needs of its ageing population in light of demographic shifts. Over multiple sessions, we will assemble an interdisciplinary group of experts to share their ideas, research and practical experience that could be adapted to the Chinese cultural, social and institutional contexts.
For a complete agenda and speaker list, click here.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-NZAPfx1Q5C72MMlwExV_Q

Africa-Asia Roundtable – Pandemics: Surveillance, Preparedness, and Response
2021-05-18 07:00 - 2021-05-19 09:00
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a global focus on pandemic surveillance, preparedness, and response. As a result of the 2014 – 2016 Ebola outbreak, the World Bank invested in the Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement (REDISSE) Program. Thirteen countries in West and Central Africa have received a $200 million funding commitment “to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat of emerging and epidemic-prone diseases.” In addition to funding, the program has provided for intra-country cooperation on detecting and preventing pandemics as well as regional lab networks and training opportunities. More recently, the Africa CDC has spearheaded continental efforts to advance various elements of detection and response to various health threats, with notable success related to COVID-19. Such programs are examples of how regional and global cooperation designed to respond to an infectious disease outbreak can be leveraged in future pandemics.
China has promised the delivery of its Sinopharm vaccine to countries in Africa, with 200,000 doses arriving in Senegal and another 200,000 in Zimbabwe. While the commitments fall far short of the 1.4 billion doses that will be needed to reach herd immunity in Africa, China’s vaccine distribution has moved alongside the WHO-endorsed COVAX plan (to which China will also contribute 10 million vaccines). India has also been a contributor to global vaccine distribution, both through COVAX and other direct supplies to the global south, distributing more than 60 million doses. The scrambling for vaccines from the global north highlights a disparity in equitable access to vaccines, raising questions about intellectual property and the possibilities for local production.
Over two days, we will convene four panels to further explore questions around vaccines and vaccine development, technology transfer, capacity building, and global cooperation strategies for combating pandemics. What lessons can the world learn from Africa’s response to previous epidemics/pandemics including Ebola and HIV/AIDS and the current COVID-19 pandemic? What is the role of global cooperation between Africa-Asia, and China-India-Africa in particular? Is the COVID-19 crisis and response, including vaccine development and distribution, an opportunity for a new era of global cooperation?
For more information, visit the roundtable website.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
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Lu Mai - The Chinese Dream and Ordinary Chinese People
2021-04-29 09:30 - 11:00
Speaker: Lu Mai, Vice-Chairman, China Development Research Foundation (CDRF)
Discussants:
Jason Furman, Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Winnie Yip, Professor of the Practice of Global Health Policy, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Acting Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Moderator: Anthony Saich, Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Lu Mai’s book The Chinese Dream and Ordinary Chinese People explores the lives of 40 ordinary people in an effort to answer a key question: What is the “China Dream”? The book tracks the journeys of individuals selected from each generation since the 1930’s and identifies three driving forces motivating their lives and dreams: autonomy, self-awareness, and hard work, along with family and social support as further important factors. These stories also reveal the ways in which significant national changes created differences in the interviewees’ dreams and experiences in pursuing them. The book chronicles how the future of an individuals is closely linked to the future of the country, and how a bright future for the country can mean a good life for all. The study outlines the ways in which people’s longing for a better life is the basis and a central element of the Chinese Dream.
Lu Mai is Vice-Chairman of the State Council’s China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), and previously served as General Secretary for over two decades. Mr. Lu has extensive experience working on rural reform efforts in China, having served as Director of Experimental Area Office for Rural Reform, Research Center for Rural Development of the State Council in the late 1980’s and leading a number of related research projects for the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Mr. Lu earned his B.A. in economics from Beijing College of Economics in 1982, and his M.A. in public administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1991.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://ash.harvard.edu/event/book-talk-chinese-dream-and-ordinary-chinese-people

Border Conflicts in the Himalayas: Bhutan, Nepal, India, and China
2021-04-28 09:00 - 11:00
Panelists:
Sudha Ramachandran, Independent Journalist; Adjunct Faculty, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai
Bhaskar Koirala, Director, Nepal Institute of Strategic and International Studies
Frank O’Donnell, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Rising Power Alliances Project, Fletcher School, Tufts University; Nonresident Fellow in the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center
Xiaoyu Pu, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno; Public Intellectuals Program Fellow, National Committee on United States-China Relations; Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, D.C.
Moderator: Arunabh Ghosh, Associate Professor of History, Harvard University
Asia Beyond the Headlines Seminar Series
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
Register at: https://tinyurl.com/up3zjcvw.

Harvard-Yenching Institute Annual Roundtable: Modernizing Asia’s Countryside
2021-04-02 09:00 - 11:00
Panelists:
Han Do-Hyun, Professor of Sociology, Academy of Korean Studies
Nguyen Thi Phuong Cham, Director, Cultural Studies Institute, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences
Nishikawa Kunio, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University
Mini Sukumar, Department of Women’s Studies, University of Calicut, Kerala
Wen Tiejun, Professor and Director of the Centre of Rural Reconstruction, Renmin University of China
Moderator: Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute
This interdisciplinary panel of distinguished scholars from China, India, Japan, Korea and Vietnam will explore the record of successful and unsuccessful efforts at rural development in their own countries. Why have some programs succeeded in increasing productivity, improving infrastructure and public services, alleviating poverty, and ameliorating social and economic inequality, whereas others proved much less successful? What have Asian countries learned from these achievements and shortcomings? And, based on that knowledge, what lies ahead for 21st-century Asian villages?
For more information, visit: https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/modernizing-asias-countryside/
Presented via Zoom Webinar.
Registration Required
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Winter Pasture: A Writer’s Journey to Altay, Northern Xinjiang — A Conversation with Li Juan
2021-04-02 09:00 - 10:30
This event will be conducted in Mandarin.
冬牧場：一個作家的邊地之旅
與李娟對話
Panelists:
Li Juan
David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University
Mingwei Song, Wellesley College
Kyle Shernuk, Yale University
Bilingual reading from Winter Pasture:
Li Juan, Talia O’Shea, Lily Sall
Co-sponsored by the Wellesley College East Asian Studies Program, CCK Foundation for Sinology Studies, and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Presented via Zoom Webinar
Registration Required
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Panel Discussion - Advancing Justice: Responses to Anti-Asian Racism in the U.S.
2021-04-01 16:00 - 17:30
Moderator: Vivian Shaw, College Fellow, Department of Sociology, Harvard University; Co-Principal Investigator, AAPI COVID-19 Project

Panelists:
Han Lu, Senior Policy Analyst, National Employment Law Project
christina ong, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh
Elena Shih, Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, Brown University
Han Lu’s work at the National Employment Law Project focuses on how inequalities of nationhood, carceral punishment, and the workplace shape one another. Prior to his work at NELP, Han was a line defender at the Orleans Public Defenders. He is a first-generation college graduate. Prior to law school, Han worked as a defense investigator for the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, the juvenile public defender in his hometown of New Orleans.
christina ong is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh studying the development of Asian America in the 1960s-1980s through an in-depth case study of New York City’s the Basement Workshop. She also serves as the Project Manager and Qualitative Committee Co-Lead for the AAPI COVID-19 Project, a multidisciplinary mixed-methods study on how COVID-19 is impacting AAPI lives in the United States. Her research interests span topics related to diaspora, racial justice, and transnational feminisms.
Vivian Shaw is a College Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and the Lead Researcher (co-PI) for the AAPI COVID-19 Project, a multi-method investigation into the impacts of the pandemic on the lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin with graduate portfolios in Asian American Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies. From 2018-2019, Vivian was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Weatherhead Center for International Relations’ Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, also at Harvard.
Elena Shih is the Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University, where she directs a human trafficking research cluster through Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Shih’s book project, “Manufacturing Freedom: Trafficking Rescue, Rehabilitation, and the Slave Free Good” (under contract with University of California Press), is a global ethnography of the transnational social movement to combat human trafficking in China, Thailand, and the United States. Shih is an outreach organizer with Red Canary Song, a grassroots coalition of massage workers, sex workers, and allies in New York City.
Presented via Zoom
Registration Required
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Reischauer Lecture Series featuring Rana Mitter — New Eras, Old Stories: From May Fourth and Meiji to the Twenty-First Century “New Era” - Defining East Asia in the Age of Novelty, Emotion and Purpose
2021-03-29 12:00 - 13:30
Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies · A Sense of Purpose? 2021 Annual Reischauer Lecture with Rana Mitter, Part 3
Read the transcript of the event here.
Speaker: Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, St. Cross College, University of Oxford
Discussant: Arunabh Ghosh, Associate Professor of History, Harvard University
Lecture 3 of 3: A Sense of Purpose?
Some states have always maintained a sense that they have a mission in the world well beyond the maintenance of domestic order, the United States, France and Britain among them. Japan, China and the Koreas also inherited a strong sense of purpose in the modern era, from Meiji modernization to Mao’s “Three Worlds” and the Belt and Road Initiative, ideas drawing on the longer past – yet the definition of that purpose has been in constant flux. What defines East Asia’s sense of purpose today, can we speak of it in regional terms, and how does it relate to its long history of aspiration to be an intellectual and moral exemplar?
Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, and a Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford. He is the author of several books, including China’s War with Japan: The Struggle for Survival, 1937-1945 (Penguin, 2013), [US title: Forgotten Ally] which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics “Meanwhile in Beijing” is available on BBC Sounds. He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report “Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy” (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the Historical Association. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
The Annual Reischauer Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Korea Institute, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and Harvard University Asia Center.
Listen to parts one and two of this three-part lecture below.

Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies · How New is the New Era? 2021 Annual Reischauer Lecture with Rana Mitter, Part 1

Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies · An Era of Emotion? 2021 Annual Reischauer Lecture with Rana Mitter, Part 2

Northern Europe’s Response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
2021-03-29 10:00 - 11:00
Reading the transcript of the event here.

Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies · Northern Europe’s Response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Read the transcript of the event here.
Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova, Head, China Studies Centre, Riga Stradins University; Head, New Silk Road Program, Latvian Institute of International Affairs
Björn Jerdén, Director, Knowledge Centre on China , Swedish Institute of International Affairs
Luke Patey, Senior Researcher, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, Danish Institute for International Studies
Moderators:
Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
James Evans, Communications Officer, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies; Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University
Nordic and Baltic countries have struggled to develop well-calibrated approaches to cooperation with China and its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Economic incentives or disincentives, human rights, the EU dynamics, security arrangements, and global governance consideration have pulled the agendas of Northern European states in different directions. This panel will discuss the current state of affairs and the prospect of a coordinated Nordic-Baltic policy with regard to the BRI.
Co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
