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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260223T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260223T174500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20260120T162458Z
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SUMMARY:***NOW TAKING PLACE VIA ZOOM*** Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Courtney Fung — Can China Achieve its UN Ambitions?
DESCRIPTION:Zoom Webinar Registration Link\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker: Courtney Fung\, Associate Professor\, School of International Studies\, Macquarie University\, Sydney\, Australia \n\n\n\nPlease note the different day and time for this Critical Issues talk.***DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER\, THIS LECTURE WILL NOW TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM WEBINAR***REGISTER AT: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_af-PQxTHQXaRabRNCONE6QChina presents itself as a supporter of ‘true multilateralism\,’ with the United Nations as a bedrock institution of global governance. The United Nations’ truly global reach\, China’s UN Security Council veto\, and position as the only legal representative of China in the UN system\, makes the body a key forum for China’s foreign policy. China seeks reform from within the multilateral institution to have it better align with PRC foreign policy preferences.  Indeed\, China’s well-reported multilateral rise is presumed to challenge US leadership in a Western-dominated UN system\, especially in the wake of the recent US departure from various UN bodies. To assess whether China can achieve its UN ambitions\, I first outline China’s power and influence against a basic heuristic of China’s UN contributions\, before focusing on China’s self-proclaimed ‘global public goods’ campaign. I next turn to the Global Development Initiative\, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative to highlight how each of these Initiatives draw upon different facets of power\, clarifying PRC tactics to promote these Initiatives within and through the UN system. My research draws mainly on written primary and secondary sources produced by PRC and UN elites\, and supplemented by insights from PRC\, US and UN officials in Washington\, DC and New York City in May and June 2024\, and Beijing in December 2025. \n\n\n\nDr. Courtney J. Fung is Associate Professor in the Discipline of Security Studies in the School of International Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney\, Australia. She is concurrently Non-Resident Fellow at LSE IDEAS; the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies\, Harvard University; at Asia Society Australia\, and at the Lowy Institute. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Georgetown University in spring 2024.  Her research focuses on how rising powers address the norms and provisions for global governance and international security\, with a primary focus on China within the UN system. Courtney’s published research spans international civil service personnel contributions and human protection issues broadly defined (e.g. cyber norms\, peacekeeping\, intervention\, and the responsibility to protect) and the effects of status for cooperation and international norm development. Courtney’s book\, China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status (Oxford: Oxford University Press\, 2019) was shortlisted for the BISA LHM Ling Outstanding First Book Prize. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy\, Tufts University.  She serves as an associate editor for H-DIPLO ISSF\, Contemporary Security Policy and the Australian Journal of International Affairs.  \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-courtney-fung-can-china-achieve-its-un-ambitions/
LOCATION:Presented via Zoom
CATEGORIES:Critical Issues Confronting China,Critical Issues Confronting China Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/courtney-fung.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260304T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260304T131500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20251215T203936Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260203T200414Z
UID:43892-1772625600-1772630100@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China series featuring Xi Lian — Christian Social Activism in Contemporary China
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Xi Lian\, David C. Steinmetz Distinguished Professor of World Christianity\, Duke University Divinity School; Visiting Scholar\, Harvard Divinity School \n\n\n\nDiscussant: James Robson\, James C. Kralik and Yunli Lou Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations\, Harvard College Professor\, Harvard University; Director\, Harvard-Yenching Institute \n\n\n\nIn his Asian tour in 1920\, Bertrand Russell noted the prominence of Christians in the Korean independence movement\, adding that in Korea “a Christian was practically synonymous with a bomb-thrower.” This talk explores a less colorful but no less pronounced role of Christians in rights defense and political dissent in China a century later. \n\n\n\nProfessor Lian is David C. Steinmetz Distinguished Professor of World Christianity at Duke Divinity School. His research is focused on China’s modern encounter with Christianity. His first book\, The Conversion of Missionaries (1997)\, is a critical study of American Protestant missions against the backdrop of rising Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century. His second book\, Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China (2010)\, winner of the 2011 Christianity Today Book Award\, examines the development of missionary Christianity into a vibrant\, indigenous faith of the Chinese masses. Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao\, a Martyr in Mao’s China (2018) is his most recent book. It is the first authoritative\, documented biography of the most important political dissident in Mao’s China\, whose open opposition to communism was sustained by her Christian faith. Dr. Lian’s other research projects include the flourishing of Christianity among minority peoples on the margins of the Chinese state and the emergence of Protestant elites and their prominent\, if also precarious\, role in the search for civil society in today’s China. \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-xi-lian-christian-social-activism-in-contemporary-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/2025/12/Xi-Lian.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260311T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260311T131500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20260120T164826Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260223T142559Z
UID:44047-1773230400-1773234900@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Jennifer Lind — Can China’s Smart Authoritarianism Model Win?
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Jennifer Lind\, Associate Professor of Government\, Dartmouth University \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Meg Rithmire\, James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration\, Business\, Government\, and International Economy Unit\, Harvard Business SchoolGreat power competition requires countries to be technological leaders\, but an influential literature holds that autocracies\, which suppress creativity and information flows\, stifle innovation. Many observers of China’s rise thus argued that it would be unable to compete technologically with the United States. Jennifer Lind’s Autocracy 2.0 shows that China has become a global innovation leader. She argues that China and other “smart authoritarians” have adapted their tools of control to better compete with free societies in today’s globalized information age. Authoritarian adaptation suggests that China – and the countries that emulate its smart authoritarian model – will be far more competitive than many observers expect: which has dramatic implications for the balance of power\, the future of international order\, and the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. \n\n\n\nJennifer Lind is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College\, and a Faculty Associate at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University. She is also a Research Associate in the US and North America Programme at Chatham House. Professor Lind’s research focuses on the international relations of East Asia and US foreign policy toward the region.  \n\n\n\nLind is the author of Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny (Cornell University Press\, 2025)\, a book that shows how authoritarian adaptation enabled China’s rise to become a superpower and technological peer competitor of the United States. Previously\, Lind published (also with Cornell University Press)\, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (2008). She has authored numerous scholarly articles in journals such as International Security and International Studies Quarterly and writes for wider audiences in Foreign Affairs. Her commentary is regularly quoted in The New York Times\, Washington Post\, The Wall Street Journal\, and National Public Radio (NPR). Lind founded and serves as the editor-in-chief of Blue Blaze\, a multi-author Substack about international relations and U.S. foreign policy. Lind holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\, a MPIA from the School of Global Policy Studies at the University of California\, San Diego\, and a BA from the University of California. \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-jennifer-lind/
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/2026/01/lind.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260325T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260325T131500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20251215T203008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T134527Z
UID:43887-1774440000-1774444500@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China series featuring Robert Suettinger — Factional Politics in the CCP: Is Change in the Air?
DESCRIPTION:Speaker:Robert Lee Suettinger\, Former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia\, National Intelligence Counsel \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Arunabh Ghosh\, Professor of History\, Harvard UniversityOver the past year\, Robert Suettinger has spent much time monitoring domestic politics in the People’s Republic of China\, much as he did as an apprentice political-military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency fifty years ago. He notes that there seems to be even less agreement now than at the end of Mao Zedong’s life about what’s really going on. Depending on who one reads\, listens to\, or watches\, and in what language\, he argues\, some see an economic behemoth with a trillion-dollar trade surplus\, a modern navy bigger than ours and global aspirations\, all under the firm control of Xi Jinping. Chinese diaspora observers see a tottering tyranny\, its economy crumbling\, ordinary people sullen and rebellious\, and Xi under challenge by a resurgent reformist movement. \n\n\n\nWhich is it and where is China going? Based on his study of Hu Yaobang’s life and elite politics in Beijing\, Suettinger suggests a weakened Xi Jinping might be facing a situation similar to that of Hua Guofeng in 1980-81.   \n\n\n\nRobert Lee Suettinger is a historian of contemporary elite politics in the People’s Republic of China. He recently completed a biography of Hu Yaobang (1915-1989)\, General Secretary and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party of China\, published by Harvard University Press\, under a grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation. \n\n\n\nSuettinger was a Senior Advisor and Consultant at the Stimson Center\, Analytic Director at CENTRA Technology Inc.\, a Senior Policy Analyst at RAND and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He retired from US government service in 1998\, after nearly 24 years in the intelligence and foreign policy bureaucracies.  \n\n\n\nHe joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1975\, and spent his entire career in the analysis of Asian affairs. After several years as an analyst and manager in CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence\, he was assigned as Director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.  Subsequently\, he served for five years as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia on the National Intelligence Council. \n\n\n\nBeginning in March 1994\, Suettinger was Director of Asian Affairs on the National Security Council\, where he assisted National Security Advisors Anthony Lake and Samuel R. Berger in the development of American policy toward East Asia.  He returned to the NIC as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia in October 1997. Suettinger holds an M.A. from Columbia University and a B.A. from Lawrence University in Appleton\, Wisconsin.  He served in the U.S. Army in the then Republic of Vietnam in 1969-70. \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-robert-suettinger-factional-politics-in-the-ccp-is-change-in-the-air/
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/SUETTINGER.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260408T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260408T131500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20260109T155333Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260325T151741Z
UID:44011-1775649600-1775654100@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Dongsheng Zang — China's Great Leap Forward to AI Supremacy
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Dongsheng Zang\, Professor of Law\, University of Washington School of LawModerator: Feng Zhu\, MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration\, Harvard Business SchoolThe talk aims to provide a framework in understanding China’s industrial policy on artificial intelligence (AI) in the last decade\, 2016-2026. It examines the AI policy from the perspective of state-industry relationship. For this purpose\, it divides the decade into three stages of development: (1) the harmonious period\, 2016-2018; (2) the crackdown\, 2018-2022; and (3) the DeepSeek paradox\, 2022-2026. It explains the success\, to some degree\, China has in AI development; but also reveals the underlying dilemma that China under Xi Jinping is facing in this crucial area of technology in the competition with the United States.   \n\n\n\nProfessor Zang joined the UW faculty full-time in 2006\, after serving as a visiting professor in 2005-06. His academic interests include international trade law\, and comparative study of Chinese law\, with a focus on the role of law and state in response to social crises in the social transformation in China. He holds an S.J.D. and LL.M. from Harvard Law School\, in addition to his LL.M. from Renmin University (Beijing) and LL.B. from Beijing College of Economics. His doctoral dissertation\, One-way Transparency: The Establishment of the Rule-based International Trade Order and the Predicament of Its Jurisprudence\, was awarded the 2004 Yong K. Kim ’95 prize. He was a research fellow at the East Asia Legal Studies at Harvard Law School during the 2004-05 academic year. \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-dongsheng-zang/
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/2026/01/dongzheng-zang.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260415T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260415T131500
DTSTAMP:20260518T104828
CREATED:20251215T202338Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260305T193139Z
UID:43878-1776254400-1776258900@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China series featuring Ian Johnson — Reclaiming Historical Memory and the Struggle for China’s Future
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Ian Johnson\, Author; Founder\, China Unofficial Archives \n\n\n\nDiscussant: Michael Szonyi\, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History; Former Director\, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies\, Harvard University \n\n\n\nIan Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist\, author\, teacher\, and researcher. He has been engaged with China for the past thirty-five years\, writing on the country’s search for faith and values\, as well as efforts to control dissent and history. \n\n\n\nHe was a 2024-2025 fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin\, where he is writing a new book on China. He also contributes to The New York Review of Books\, The New Yorker\, and regularly speaks in the media or to public audiences about China.  \n\n\n\nHe is the founder of the China Unofficial Archives\, an online repository of hundreds of samizdat magazines\, books\, and underground films. This website is a registered (501c3) non-profit that uploads and annotates new movies and publications daily. \n\n\n\nHis latest book\, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future\, describes how some of China’s best-known writers\, filmmakers\, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to forge a nationwide movement that challenges the Communist Party on its most hallowed ground: its control of history.  \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-ian-jonshon-reclaiming-historical-memory-and-the-struggle-for-chinas-future/
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/2025/12/IanDJohnson.jpg
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