Urban China Lecture Series featuring Zhao Miaoxi —Mismatched Industrial Land Lease Terms: Urban Land Vacancy Induced by Business Turnover
2026-04-21 20:30 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | Presented via Zoom
Zoom Meeting link

Speaker: Zhao Miaoxi, South China University of TechnologyIn China’s system of public land ownership, industrial land leases often extend beyond the relatively short lifespan of enterprises. Consequently, formulating land use strategies that account for business turnover has emerged as a crucial task for urban planning. This lecture explores urban land vacancy through the primary lens of firm turnover data, examining the complete business life cycle from market entry to exit. Using downtown Guangzhou as an empirical case study, the research reveals that the survival spans of most companies are significantly shorter than their granted land tenure, inevitably leading to spatial inefficiency and vacancy. By simulating the interaction between company survival rates and land tenure periods, the study evaluates various policy interventions aimed at minimizing land waste. We propose several targeted planning strategies, including flexible land transfer mechanisms, the revitalization of underutilized industrial spaces, and the promotion of mixed-use development.Professor Miaoxi Zhao holds dual Ph.D. degrees in Urban Planning (China) and Geography (Belgium). He is a Professor and Department Head of Urban Planning at South China University of Technology. His research centers on urban transformation in contemporary China, examined through the theoretical and empirical lens of the global network society. His methodological and technological innovations in spatial planning have directly informed high-impact policy documents and strategic frameworks, including the Pearl River Delta Regional Integrated Development Plan, the Guangzhou Urban Development Strategy (2040), and the Shenzhen Hub City Construction Research Report.We would like to thank the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, and the Australian Centre on China in the World for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.Join Zoom Meeting: https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212

https://mit.zoom.us/j/97955535212

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What Does It Mean to “Write Oneself” in Tibetan Autobiographical Tradition: The Amazing Life of Guru Chowang
2026-04-22 11:30 - 13:00 | Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Geri Jiebu, Associate Professor, School of Chinese Ethnic Minority Language and Literature, Minzu University of China; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26Chair/Discussant: Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard Divinity School

What Does It Mean to “Write Oneself” in Tibetan Autobiographical Tradition: The Amazing Life of Guru Chowang

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What Factors Influence Senior People’s Digital Health Technology Adoption Decision in China and Thailand: A Qualitative Study
2026-04-23 11:00 - 12:30 | CGIS South, Room S153, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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Panelists:Haijing Hao, Associate Professor, Computer Information Systems, Bentley University; Associate, Harvard University Asia Center Heiko Gewald, Research Professor of Information Management, Neu-Ulm University, Neu-Ulm, Germany (joining virtually) Assadaporn Sapsomboon, Associate Professor of Information Technology, Department of Statistics, Chulalongkorn Business School, Bangkok, Thailand (joining virtually)

Moderator: Hongtu Chen, Co-director, Social Technology for Global Aging Research Initiative at Harvard; Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School

Registration appreciated for planning purpose.

This panel discussion will cover the TAMAG project, a cross-cultural study examining how seniors in China, Thailand, and Germany navigate digital health technologies and the personal challenges of aging.

The TAMAG project (Technology Acceptance Model for the Aging Generation) conducted field interviews with seniors (65+) in China, Thailand, and Germany during 2025/26. Participants were drawn from diverse backgrounds and varied geographical regions, including major cities and rural areas. The study focused on seniors’ daily use of digital technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, particularly for health-related purposes. Researchers also explored issues critical to older adults, including the ease of navigating healthcare systems, experiences with medical consultations, and personal perceptions of aging and loneliness. While the interviews highlighted the diverse cultural contexts within China and Thailand, the next phase of analysis will contrast these findings with the Western context, as represented by the interviews with German participants.

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A Conversation with Ambassador Lui Tuck Yew of Singapore
2026-04-23 16:30 - 17:30 | Ellwood Democracy Lab – Rubenstein 414AB, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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Join us for a fireside chat between Ambassador Lui Tuck Yew and Ambassador Nicholas Burns. The conversation will explore Singapore’s role amid intensifying U.S.–China competition and consider the broader forces shaping today’s international landscape.

Amb Lui Tuck Yew was appointed Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States in June 2023, after serving as Ambassador to China (2019–2023) and Japan (2017–2019). He was Minister for Transport (2011–2015), concurrently Second Minister for Foreign Affairs (2011–2012) and Defense (2015), and Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (2009–2011). First elected to Parliament in 2006, he served as Senior Minister of State until 2009. A Singapore Armed Forces scholar, Amb Lui rose to Chief of Navy in 1999. He later served as Chief Executive of the Maritime and Port Authority (2003) and CEO of the Housing and Development Board (2005). He has degrees from University of Cambridge, Trinity College United Kingdom, and Tufts University, and he was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Bronze) (Military) in 1993, the Public Administration Medal (Gold) (Military) in 2000, and the Long Service Medal in 2005.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns is a Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Kennedy School and the Founder and Faculty Chair of the Program on Diplomacy and Statecraft. Burns served as the U.S. Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 2021-2025.Registration required. Open to Harvard Faculty, Students, and Staff.

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Gender Studies and Performance Workshop
2026-04-24 09:00 - 17:00 | CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
9:00 – 9:15 AM: Welcome Remarks

9:15 – 10:45 AM: Panel One

Commentators: Waiyee Li, Harvard UniversityThomas Kelly, Harvard University

Eugene Wang, Harvard UniversityThe Woman Inhabiting a Dog’s Body: How Asian Theatre Evolved?

When did Asian theatre begin—and how? I approach this question through a single, startling image: Mulian’s mother reborn as a dog. The Mulian story—of a son descending into hell to rescue his damned mother—circulated as scripture, transformation text, cave mural, Ghost Festival ritual, and eventually full-fledged theatrical spectacle. Its remarkable transmedial persistence demands explanation.

I argue that Mulian functioned as a conceptual engine for theatre’s evolution. The narrative’s internal pressures—how to render hell visible, how to stage karmic punishment, how to embody transformation, how to make filial devotion sensorially overwhelming—forced successive media to innovate. Cave murals developed sequential and topographic pictorial logics; ritual performances mobilized immersive, participatory environments; theatre devised acrobatics, mechanical effects, demonic choreography, percussive soundscapes, and startling audience infiltration.

The episode of “the woman inhabiting a dog’s body” crystallizes this engine at work: grotesque degradation and redemptive love fused into a single theatrical demand. The story did not simply migrate across media—it reconfigured them. Asian theatre, I suggest, emerged not as a sudden invention but as the cumulative response to a narrative that insisted the invisible be made visible, the metaphysical made bodily, and salvation staged before a crowd.

Kangni Huang, University of Southern California, Society of Fellows in the HumanitiesThe (After)life of a Stele: The Materiality of Writing in Jiang Shiquan’s Three Plays on Consort Lou

This paper focuses on the High Qing dramatist Jiang Shiquan’s 蔣士銓 (1725-1785) three plays on Consort Lou 婁妃, wife of the rebellious Prince Ning, Zhu Chenhao 朱宸濠 (d. 1520). The historical Consort Lou leaves only scarce traces in official history, appearing primarily as a virtuous yet tragic figure whose repeated remonstrations against her husband’s rebellion went unheeded. Meanwhile, Jiang’s theatrical portrayal of this historical figure shapes the image of Consort Lou into a reflexive voice on the issue of writing as material traces. Among the three plays by Jiang, the first two, Yi pian shi 一片石 (A Piece of Stone) and Di’er bei 第二碑 (The Second Stele), tell the rediscovery and commemoration of her burial site over the span of twenty-five years. And the last one, Caiqiao tu 採樵圖 (The Painting of Gathering Wood), stages the rebellion and Lou’s virtuous actions during the turmoil. Building on recent scholarship that defines these works as “metahistorical plays,” my analysis highlights the intricate relationship between Consort Lou’s life story as a virtuous woman and the materiality of writing. It argues that Jiang’s recurring reflection on the precariousness of material texts is deeply intertwined with the constructed image of Lou as both a female author and reader. By recentering on Lou’s authorial and readerly voice in these plays, this study elucidates how theater not only reimagines but also reinvents gender history.

10:45 – 11:00 AM: Refreshment Break

11:00 AM – 1:00 PM: Panel Two

Commentators: David Der-Wei Wang, Harvard UniversityEileen Cheng-yin Chow, Duke University

Nancy Rao, Rutgers UniversityOpera Actresses in the Cantonese Sojourner Community: From Shanghai to San Francisco

Taking the 1922 encounter in Shanghai between Cantonese opera actress Li Xuefang and Peking opera star Mei Lanfang as a point of departure, this paper argues that Cantonese opera’s rising status then was a reconfiguration of cultural capital across regional and diasporic networks. By analyzing the circulation of the term “Bei-Mei-Nan-Xue” (北梅南雪) and the scholar–gentry–merchant alliances that underwrote both of their prominence, the study demonstrates how operatic prestige was produced through urban modernity and elite patronage. The paper situates Shanghai as a mediating hub in the transpacific cultural economy that linked Cantonese opera to Chinese communities in North America. In this way, opera actresses emerge not only as performers but as agents in the production of diasporic modernity, negotiating gender, regional identity, and transpacific mobility.

Catherine V. Yeh, Boston UniversityHuashanas the Ideal Modern Women

Between 1910s and early 1920s a group of talented Peking Opera actors, led by Mei Lanfang 梅兰芳and followed by three other great dan actors created a new female role called huashan 花衫,or “flower-shirt.” This was remarked upon at the time by the theater world at large as the main reason for their rise in stardom. Undoubtedly, the new huashan operas attracted large audiences in part because of the novelty of the role, which combined the three main dan roles including the morally upright qingyi 青衣,the coquette sexy huadan and the martial, spirited wudan. In the huadan the audience saw a more rounded female character that seemed to fit the modern standards of realism, while the dynamism expressed in this new role appeared to represent the spirit of the time. Yet, in terms of ideology, this huashan character does not pose a challenge to the Confucian image of the ideal woman. Embedded in each of the three main dan role types is an essentially Confucian view of womanhood. The real formal breakthrough that challenged the standard ideology of ideal womanhood came with the introduction of dance into Peking opera by Mei Lanfang. The re-creation of the lost Chinese dance by him and his adviser Qi Rushan transformed Peking opera aesthetics and its embedded social values. The form itself projected an alternative ideal womanhood that challenged standard gender ideals. At the same time, Mei Lanfang and Qi Rushan legitimized the introduction of dance by making the claim that what they were doing was reclaiming a lost Chinese aesthetic heritage. The aestheticism of mei 美or beauty was this new ideology’s outer cloak.

Daphne P. Lei, University of California, IrvineConformity as Rebellion? Convention, Innovation, and Gendered Interculturalism in Taiwan Jingju

Traditional theatrical convention, which made sense when it was invented in the past, often appears dated or even ridiculous in the context of innovation or modernization. For instance, the art of stilting (caiqiao) in jingju, which was invented for male actors to mimic women’s bound feet during the Qing dynasty, should have disappeared by now, since women dominate female roles today and the modern definition of femininity goes beyond foot fetish. However, not only do many “dated” conventions survive, but they also work as wonderful stimuli for innovation and as a tool to negotiate conceptions of gender and interculturalism. This talk will focus on recent case studies in innovative jingju and jingju-inspired intercultural theatre in Taiwan, such as The Tempest by Contemporary Legend Theatre.

1:00 – 2:00 PM: Lunch Break

2:00 – 2:15 PM: Workshop participants move to Harvard FAS CAM Lab Lower Level, Sackler Building, 485 Broadway, Cambridge MA

2:30 – 4:00 PM: Room — A Corporeal Dialogue Across Time (2026)

Jingqiu Guan, Choreographer/Dancer, Duke UniversityHan Qin, Visual Design, State University of New York at Stony BrookEthan Eldred, Lighting Design, Duke University

Room is a multimedia solo dance performance inspired by poems carved onto the wooden walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station, written by Asian immigrants detained and interrogated upon their arrival in the United States between 1910 and 1940. Originally staged inside a translucent cube with four projection walls activated through motion-capture choreography, the work is reimagined for the spatial architecture of Harvard’s CAMLab, where four parallel screens transform the space into a layered landscape of memory, surveillance, and inscription.

Han Qin’s visual design, combining charcoal drawing, cyanotype blueprint, and digital art derived from Guan’s original footage of Angel Island, renders the archive as both tactile and mediated, material and spectral. Within this constructed “room,” the dancer, juxtaposing the labor of birthing with the violence of immigration control, positions her body as both witness and translator, engaging in a cross-temporal dialogue with voices that persist through absence and erasure. Room invites us to ponder how we might listen to and touch our histories with openness and humility, and how freedom is imagined, constrained, and valued.

Performance to be immediately followed by a conversation with Jingqiu Guan and Han Qin, moderated by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow

4:00 PM: Reception

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Green Transportation: Co-benefits for Climate, Air Quality, and the Economy
2026-04-27 15:00 - 16:00 | Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: WU Ye, Professor, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; Executive Deputy Director, Beijing Laboratory of Environment Frontier, China

Electric vehicle (EV) promotion is a key strategy to improve air quality and address climate change. As the world’s largest manufacturer of EVs and batteries, China’s rapid development in both passenger and commercial fleets has also facilitated the global electrification transition. The promotion of electric vehicles must balance cost viability and environmental benefits, and notable variations across different use scenarios. Air quality benefits depend on the amount and spatiotemporal distribution of pollutant emission reductions, whereas climate benefits should be assessed from a life-cycle perspective across EV and battery supply chains.

This talk will involve recent data research on real-world carbon footprints, air pollutant emissions, traffic activity, and cost to quantify the carbon reduction, pollution mitigation, and economic characteristics of EVs and batteries. Next, it will present case studies of two megacities, Shanghai and Chengdu, evaluating the air quality benefits and costs of different electric truck fleets informed by real-world usage data. For example, it will introduce the real case of road right policy design which has enhanced the economic competitiveness of electric trucks while generating considerable air quality improvements.

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2026 Harvard Visual China Graduate Symposium — Enclosures: In and Out of Worldmaking
2026-05-01 13:00 - 17:30 | Sackler Building Auditorium, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Throughout history, the meeting of images and architecture has generated spaces of imagination, devotion, and meaning. From murals and sculpture ensembles in Buddhist cave temples to digital projections and immersive installations, images and architecture have long collaborated in the making of worlds. Yet the relationship between images and architecture in artistic worldmaking is anything but monolithic. Architecture does not merely contain or frame images, but situates and conditions their visual expressions and interpretations. Conversely, images transform the built environments that hold them, reconfiguring space into realms of vision, ritual, and belief. Harvard Visual China’s 2026 Graduate Symposium presents two panels on how images and architecture in Chinese and East Asian art at large construct, sustain, and reimagine worlds.This event is generously sponsored by the Department of History of Art & Architecture and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Innovation Fund, Harvard FAS CAMLab, and the Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series.

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China’s Political Economy: Challenges and Opportunities — Presentations by Fairbank Center Visiting Scholars and Fellows
2026-05-04 14:00 - 15:30 | CGIS South Room S354, 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Presentations:

Lingang Zhou, Associate Professor, School of Politics and International Affairs, East China Normal University; 2025-26 Visiting Scholar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies The Progressive Logic of the PRC’s ConstitutionThe PRC’s constitution was initially established on the basis of a differentiated allocation of political power. First, the exploiting classes were deprived of the right to vote. Second, voting rights were distributed unequally between workers and peasants. However, at the level of constitutional law, both forms of inequality were gradually eliminated. By no later than 2010, formal equality in voting rights had been achieved within the system. Yet the dominant interpretation of the principle of equality remains unchanged. This has led to an inconsistency between interpretation and institutional reality. Exploring this inconsistency can help reveal the progressive logic underlying it.Yixiao Zhou, Associate Professor in Economics and Director of the China Economy Program, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University; 2025-26 Visiting Scholar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies The Impact of Chinese Firms on Global Competition Since China’s market-oriented reforms and accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the share of Chinese firms in the global market has expanded significantly in recent decades. In this talk, Yixiao Zhou examines how the increase in China’s global market share has reshaped global competition. She examines how competitive pressure varies between firms of different market power, size, geographic locations, and industry sectors.

Yunli Lou, Founder and Managing Partner, Milestone Capital Partners; 2025-26 Visiting Fellow of Practice, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies China’s Path to Energy Security – what has been achieved and what can be learned?For more than a decade, China has been deliberately building an energy infrastructure and supply chain with a goal to reduce reliance on imports, dramatically increase clean energy production and consumption, and achieve a high degree of energy self-sufficiency. This will only be accomplished through a fundamental transformation of its energy system, moving from a fossil-fuel dominant structure to one led by new energy sources.

Based on her experience investing in renewable and battery companies in China over the last 20 years, Yunli Lou will present a case study to illustrate the opportunities and challenges for firms in China’s new energy sector.

Discussant: Mark Wu, Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

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Poetry Evaluation and Gender Portrayal in Early Medieval Chinese Texts: Two Case Studies Using Language Models
2026-05-06 10:30 - 11:30 | Room K354, CGIS Knafel, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Wenyi Shang, Assistant Professor, School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, University of MissouriEarly medieval Chinese texts are known for their interpretive richness, inviting a wide range of sometimes conflicting readings. The development of Transformer-based language models allows us to revisit these texts and examine them comparatively within a shared semantic space. This presentation introduces two case studies: one on poetry evaluation in the work of literary criticism Shipin 詩品 (Poetry Gradings), composed in the early sixth century, and the other on gender portrayal in epitaph verses from the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534 C.E.). The results reveal nuanced yet consistent patterns in both cases, which become most visible within a relational space by simultaneously comparing a large corpus of texts, an endeavor made possible through computational methods.

Wenyi Shang is an assistant professor in the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri. He received his bachelor’s degree from Peking University in 2019, and his Ph.D. in information sciences from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2024. His research focuses on digital humanities, where he both works as a humanities scholar specializing in medieval China, applying computational methods to revisit longstanding questions in the social, political, cultural, and literary history of the period, and works with humanities scholars as a methodologist and disciplinary translator, engaging in topics across humanities disciplines.

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Electric Vehicle–Power System Interactions: Potential, Impacts, and Economics
2026-05-06 15:30 - 16:30 | Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States
Speaker: ZHAO Yang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

RSVP Required

EV-grid integration (VGI) has the potential to manage the power demand from EVs and utilize EV batteries as distributed storage to support power-system balancing. Challenges remain in planning the long-term development of EV-grid integration, as the system value of VGI is often insufficiently understood in the context of coupled power-system expansion and EV growth. Recent studies have explored the impact of VGI on solar-rich power systems, where noon-time charging is predominantly promoted. However, many coastal high-growth regions are well suited to EV adoption but face land constraints on utility-scale solar and wind generation, making the role of VGI unclear. Here, we develop an integrated optimization model linking EV operating patterns with least-cost power-system expansion under VGI. We apply it to Guangdong, China’s leading province in both EV stock and electricity demand, through 2050 under different decarbonization scenarios. Our results show how VGI interacts with rooftop PV, offshore wind, and fossil-fuel-fired power plants with CCS under different decarbonization scenarios. We further evaluate the avoided system costs of unidirectional and bidirectional VGI in long-run power-system expansion.

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How to Cultivate a Moral Human: A Conversation with Michael Puett and Amy Zhang
2026-05-07 11:00 - 12:30 | CGIS South, Room S153, 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
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Speakers:Michael Puett, Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History; Director, Harvard University Asia CenterAmy Zhang, Master’s Student, Harvard Graduate School of EducationWhat can ancient Confucian philosophy offer for how we design education and live well in the AI age?Mencius argued that moral life begins not with rules but with cultivating the “four sprouts,” the seeds of moral life, through ritual, relationship, and care. Join Michael Puett, Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology and author of The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, and Amy Zhang, graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former producer of Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, for a reflection on their fall independent study on ritual and Mencius on moral development.

Enjoy Chinese tea in this casual talk and salon as we bring together philosophers, artists, and educators to ask what it means to design from this non-Western ontology.

RSVP Here | Limited Capacity

Michael Puett (普鸣) is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion and the Director of the Harvard University Asia Center. He is also a non-resident long-term fellow for programs in anthropological and historical sciences and the languages and civilizations of East Asia at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala.

Puett joined the Harvard faculty in 1994 after earning his M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1994) from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His interests focus on the inter-relations between religion, anthropology, history, and philosophy. In his research, Puett aims to bring the study of China into larger historical and comparative frameworks. He has published many articles on early Chinese history (c. 1200 B.C. – c. 755 A.D.), and on classical Chinese ritual, social, and political theory.Amy Zhang is a writer, artist, and educator creating narratives and methods that ask how we live, learn, and become human, drawing from non-Western philosophies and ways of being. As a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she is developing the right to become human — an applied framework across children’s rights and pluriversal philosophy — along with companion theatrical work (Out of Time) and pedagogy (Awake, a summer camp for teens to redesign their lives in the attention age).Previously, she produced global stories for Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj and worked in documentary theater at Pink Fang (formerly Ping Chong + Company). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Dial, and Joyland Magazine, where her short story on Chinese international students won the 2022 Open Borders Prize. Born in Beijing and raised in Hong Kong, she graduated with honors in anthropology from Wesleyan University and is a descendant of the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhang Zai.www.amy-zhang.com

With support from the HGSE Dean’s Office Student AI Initiative Fund

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Film Screening and Discussion: Daughter of the Light with the Filmmaker
2026-06-12 18:00 - 20:15 | Hall A, Science Center, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, United States
Speaker: Khashem Gyal, Filmmaker; Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of the Arts, and Asia in Action Fellow, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Daughter of the Light is a deeply moving feature documentary about thirteen-year-old Metok Karpo who lives in a Tibetan boarding school for orphans. The film follows Metok as she navigates the emotional complexities of her parents’ divorce in a rural town on the Tibetan plateau, set against the backdrop of generational and social change.

A discussion will follow the screening.

Free and open to public.

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