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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261021T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261021T131500
DTSTAMP:20261008T182710Z
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SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Andrew Erickson — Are Rampant Removals of Admirals and Generals Harming or Helping China’s Naval & Military Advancement?
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Andrew S. Erickson\, Visiting Scholar\, Harvard University Asia Center; Professor\, Founding Member\, and Former Research Director\, China Maritime Studies Institute\, US Naval War College \n\n\n\nAre rampant removals of top officials from China’s Navy and other services\, as well as the defense industry supporting them\, decapitating its military advancement? Or do the benefits somehow exceed the costs\, at least in the view of PRC paramount leader Xi Jinping? What is the relationship between leadership turnover\, organizational disruption\, and China’s naval and broader military modernization? This lecture probes an apparent paradox: even as unprecedented purges remove senior officers and defense-industry leaders\, China’s military—and particularly its navy—continues to expand and improve at a formidable pace. Employing a “forest and trees” metaphor\, this talk argues that analysts risk mistaking extraordinary personnel turbulence for institutional paralysis. Xi’s removals undoubtedly impose costs\, disrupt leadership networks\, and expose persistent corruption and political dysfunction\, but they coexist with—and may in some respects even facilitate—continued capability development. \n\n\n\nChina possesses unusually deep pools of personnel\, industrial capacity\, technology\, infrastructure\, and state-directed resources\, while the system under Xi prioritizes political reliability alongside operational competence and rapidly replaces leaders deemed corrupt\, disloyal\, or ineffective. The resulting “forest” continues to flourish: China’s military is fielding increasingly sophisticated platforms and munitions\, expanding production capacity\, improving training realism and joint integration\, and sustaining an intensifying operational tempo. Nowhere are these trends more visible and consequential than in the maritime domain and around Taiwan\, where increasingly complex exercises rehearse coercion\, blockade\, precision-strike\, and invasion-related capabilities. Pervasive corruption and repeated removals represent important vulnerabilities\, but they should not be assumed to derail China’s military buildup. Individual trees are falling at a remarkable rate\, but the larger armed forces forest grows rapidly regardless. \n\n\n\nDisclaimer: The views expressed by Dr. Erickson are his alone\, based solely on open sources and offered from an independent academic perspective. They do not represent the policies or estimates of the U.S. Navy or any other organization of the U.S. government\, or of any other organization with which he is affiliated. Dr. Erickson is presenting in his personal capacity\, not as an employee of the U.S. government. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/critical-issues-confronting-china-series-featuring-andrew-erickson-are-rampant-removals-of-admirals-and-generals-harming-or-helping-chinas-naval-military-advancement/
LOCATION:CGIS South S020\, Belfer Case Study Room\, 1730 Cambridge St.\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Critical Issues Confronting China,Critical Issues Confronting China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Andrew-Erickson.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261104T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261104T131500
DTSTAMP:20261008T160855Z
CREATED:20260901T175501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261008T160855Z
UID:45582-1793793600-1793798100@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Jean Oi — China’s New Venture Capitalists? The Transformation of Local Government Financing Vehicles
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Jean Oi\, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics\, Department of Political Science; Senior Fellow\, The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies\, Stanford UniversityIn the wake of COVID-19 and the property-market collapse\, China’s local government financing vehicles (LGFVs)—entities created to borrow and invest on behalf of local governments—had accumulated more than $8 trillion in debt by 2022. This enormous burden has forced some localities to cut back public services and has intensified concerns about fiscal sustainability. \n\n\n\nYet recent research\, including fieldwork in China\, points to a surprising development: in some places\, LGFVs are taking on a new role as venture capital investors. Where is this transformation occurring\, and how have heavily indebted LGFVs become vehicles for funding innovative firms? This talk examines what this shift means for local development strategies—and for China’s broader challenge of managing local government debt. \n\n\n\nJean C. OI is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.  She directs the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.  She served as the President of the Association for Asian Studies from March 2023 to March 2024.  \n\n\n\nA Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan\, Prof Oi first taught at Lehigh University and later in the Department of Government at Harvard University before joining the Stanford faculty in 1997.  \n\n\n\nProf Oi has published extensively on China’s political economy and institutions in the process of reform. Central-local relations in China are the core of her research\, which has “followed the money”—first grain\, then taxes\, and most recently local government debt as a window into politics.  Recent publications include “China’s Changing Development Model:  Insights from Recent Fieldwork\,” The Journal of Asian Studies\, Vol. 85\, No. 3 (August 2026); and “A Perfect Storm: Fiscal Discipline\, COVID\, and Local Government Debt in China\,” with Jason Luo and XU Yunxiao. The China Journal\, Vol. 93 (January 2025). \n\n\n\nCurrently\, she is studying how some local governments are acting like venture capitalists—investing in “new industries” to spur fresh revenue and growth in the wake of the collapse of land-based finance and the heavy burden of local government debt after COVID. Building on her earlier work\, Prof. Oi is also pursuing a project that uses an institutional\, micro-level lens to identify the key actors—and their interests—as local governments try to expand overseas through the Belt and Road Initiative. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/critical-issues-confronting-china-series-featuring-jean-oi-2/
LOCATION:CGIS South S020\, Belfer Case Study Room\, 1730 Cambridge St.\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Critical Issues Confronting China,Critical Issues Confronting China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/jean-oi.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261119T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261119T131500
DTSTAMP:20261014T190040Z
CREATED:20261014T190037Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261014T190040Z
UID:46056-1795089600-1795094100@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Lynette Ong — Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Opinion Management in China
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Lynette Ong\, Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics\, University of Toronto; Director\, China Governance Lab\, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public PolicyDigital technology facilitates information sharing among activists; however\, it also affords autocrats new vectors of control\, allowing them to surveil and subjugate dissenters. Yet\, in China—the world’s most powerful autocratic state where most of the dissent takes place online before it spillovers to the street—we argue the state’s prowess in digital surveillance stems from the co-optation of market forces. In this book\, we examine how the Chinese state manages\, moderates\, and represses online opinion. Drawing on public procurement documents\, we study how the Chinese Party-state at national and subnational levels have intended to manage online expression of public opinion. Private corporations\, along with for-profit arms of state-owned enterprises and public sector organizations\, are extensively involved in surveillance of public opinion. This opens up a Pandora’s box of state‒business dynamics in China. \n\n\n\nLynette Ong is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto\, and Director of the China Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Chinese and Asian Politics. Her latest books\, Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Opinion Management in China (Cambridge University Press\, 2026) and Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press\, 2022)\, examine the Chinese party-state’s capacity to mobilize nonstate actors to extend its reach into society. Her research has received multiple awards from APSA\, ASA\, ISA\, CPSA\, and SSHRC. Her academic publications have appeared in Perspectives on Politics\, Comparative Politics\, Journal of Democracy\, China Quarterly\,  among others. Her opinion pieces and research have been featured in The Economist\,  The New York Times (Editorial Opinion)\, The New Yorker\, Foreign Affairs\, and The Washington Post. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nVenue
URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/critical-issues-confronting-china-series-featuring-lynette-ong-outsourcing-surveillance-online-opinion-management-in-china/
LOCATION:CGIS South S020\, Belfer Case Study Room\, 1730 Cambridge St.\, Cambridge\, MA\, 02138\, United States
CATEGORIES:Critical Issues Confronting China,Critical Issues Confronting China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/lynette-ong.jpg
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