BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies - ECPv6.17.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20270314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20271107T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260311T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260311T131500
DTSTAMP:20260223T142559Z
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260325T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260325T131500
DTSTAMP:20260325T134527Z
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260408T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260408T131500
DTSTAMP:20260325T151741Z
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:20260305T193139Z
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
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261007T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261007T131500
DTSTAMP:20260901T172646Z
CREATED:20260901T172642Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260901T172646Z
UID:45573-1791374400-1791378900@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Laikwan Pang — A Sense of Justice: The Struggle with Laws in Hong Kong
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Laikwan Pang\, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Cultural & Religious Studies\, Chinese University of Hong KongDiscussant: Li Jie\, Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies\, Harvard College Professor\, Director of Graduate Studies\, Harvard UniversityCan a state maintain a sense of justice among its citizenry even as it tightens the legal apparatus of social control?  This talk analyzes how Hong Kong’s citizens\, since the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020\, are dealing with their new legal environment. Through a discussion of the film\, The Sparring Partner (2022)\, Professor Pang highlights the ways in which collective sentiments are evolving. She argues that framing a sense of justice remains an important duty of the state\, even amid a strengthening of political control.  As the government increasingly relies on legal instruments to manage dissent\, the question is not simply how it will choose to enforce security laws\, but whether its citizens can still maintain a feeling of justice\, despite it often being a mirage.By exploring Hong Kong people’s current sense of justice\, the presentation also examines the scope and limits of the PRC’s paternalism\, which underpins not only Hong Kong’s National Security Law but also the entire governance in China. This paternal order relies on both public obedience and the active social reproduction of the dominant ideology. Hong Kong serves as a critical case study revealing the mechanics and limitations of this governance model.    \n\n\n\nLaikwan Pang received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis\, and she has taught at CUHK since 2002. She is now Choh-Ming Li Professor of Cultural & Religious Studies. She specializes in critical theories\, and her research spans a broad spectrum of issues related to culture in Modern and Contemporary China and Hong Kong. One of her central philosophical projects is the exploration of the dynamics between “many” and “one\,” manifested in the intersections between culture and politics\, copies and models\, plurality and unity\, as well as democracy and sovereignty. She is the author of a few books\, and her scholarship has been recognized internationally. Creativity and Its Discontents received the Chiang King-Kuo Foundation Publication Award\, The Appearing Demos received the American Library Association Choice Outstanding Academic Title\, and One and All was shortlisted for the Political Studies Association W.J.M. Mackenzie Book Prize. She also received the Discovery International Award offered by the Australian Research Council\, the Research Excellence Award\, and the Young Research Award from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  \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-laikwan-pang-a-sense-of-justice-the-struggle-with-laws-in-hong-kong/
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/laikwan-pang.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261104T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261104T131500
DTSTAMP:20260901T175504Z
CREATED:20260901T175501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260901T175504Z
UID:45582-1793793600-1793798100@fairbank.fas.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Jean Oi
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Jean Oi\, William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics\, Department of Political Science; Senior Fellow\, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)\, Stanford University. More information coming soon. \n\n\n\nJean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics at 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. In March 2022\, she was elected Vice President of the Association for Asian Studies\, serving as its President from March 2023 to March 2024. \n\n\n\nA Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan\, 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\nOi’s work focuses on comparative politics\, with special expertise on China’s political economy and institutions in the process of reform. Central-local relations in China are the core of her research. Employing a political economy perspective\, she has “followed the money”—first grain\, then taxes\, and most recently local government debt as a window into politics. \n\n\n\nDelving into China’s authoritarian resilience\, she co-edited a volume on how adaptive governance by local-level institutions has met the challenges and demands from an increasingly complex society that strain resources and the political system as the economy has grown exponentially. More recently\, she co-edited a volume that highlights the challenges China now faces after reaping record-breaking growth over the last 40 years by only tweaking the institutions that it inherited from the Mao period. Instead of tackling the most politically difficult part of the reform process\, leaders appear to be “going back to the future\,” relying on a playbook not seen since the Mao period. \n\n\n\nCurrently\, she is researching how local governments are coping after the collapse of land finance and the overhang from huge local government debt after COVID. Moving beyond her earlier work\, Oi also is engaged in a project that takes an institutional and micro-level approach to identify the key players and their interests as local governments seek to go global with 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
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR