Events
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How US Internet Optimism Turned to AI Alarm with China
WCC 3013, Wasserstein Hall 1585 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Graham Webster, Stanford University US thinkers once looked to the future of Internet technology in China with dreams of liberalization. China and the US co-built and jointly profited from the 2000s digital economy and the smartphone revolution, yet in the 2010s both countries’ governments became increasingly anxious about their vulnerability and interdependence in the
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The Death of Strategic Ambiguity: Middle Power Survival in the New U.S.-China Cold War
CGIS South, Room S050 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Seong-Hyon Lee, Senior Fellow, George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations; Associate, Harvard University Asia Center Moderator: Andrew Erickson, Visiting Scholar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; Professor of Strategy, China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College Registration appreciated for planning purposes. For decades, East Asian middle powers like South Korea thrived
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Rethinking the Global Order: Latin America, China, and the U.S. Amid Transforming Economic and Political Paradigms
CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium (S010) 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA, United StatesKeynote: Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, President, Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceModerator: Marisol Argueta de Barillas, Head of Latin America; Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum Panelists:Enrique Dussel Peters, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)Mark Wu, Director, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law,
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Against Erasure: Uyghur Poems, Imprisoned Souls, and the Act of Resistance
CGIS South, Room S050 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Aziz Isa Elkun, University of London In the face of the Chinese government1s systemic efforts to silence the Uyghur people, the written word becomes a profound act of resistance. Against this backdrop of cultural erasure, two recently pubIished English-language poetry anthologies - Uyghur Poems and Imprisoned Souls, stand as vital testaments to love, survival,
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Urban China Lecture featuring Chris Courtney — Defrosting the Deep History of Chinese Cold Chains
Presented via ZoomSpeaker: Chris Courtney, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History, University of Durham, UK.Cold chains are a vital component of modern cities. Most histories trace their origins to the advent of the ice trade in the nineteenth century. This paper argues that cold chains have been around a lot longer. In China, they have been used
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Butchered Rooms: Precarity, Resilience, and the Politics of Informal Housing in Post-Handover Hong Kong
Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Ruby YS LAI, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2025-26Chair/Discussant: Ya-Wen Lei, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University In the past decades, the growing housing crisis has destabilized individual housing tenure and exacerbated an everyday sense of insecurity, especially among low-income renters in megacities, where housing costs continuously soar under increased
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Fairbank Center Visiting Scholar Presentations
CGIS South, Room S153 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesPlease join us for research presentations by two Fairbank Center Visiting Scholars: Tommy Tse, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies, University of AmsterdamChina as data colonizer? Rethinking cultural production, cultural mediation, and consumer agency on Kenyan and Chinese e-commerce platforms Is China becoming a new “data coloniser” in the Global South? As Chinese digital
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Harvard Asia Law Conference II
WCC, Wasserstein Hall 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MassachusettsPlease join us for HALS 2026 Conference, which will take place at the WCC on Harvard Law School Campus April 1st & 2nd. This year, panels will feature topics like AI regulations across Asia, the future of US-China trade relations, practicing in-house at multinational companies, and more. Please click here for details on the full agenda, panel
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China Economy Lecture featuring Panle Jia Barwick — From Free Rider to Innovator: The Rise of China’s Drug Development
CGIS South Room S250 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Panle Jia Barwick, Todd E. and Elizabeth H. Warnock Distinguished Chair Professor, Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison This paper examines China’s transition from pharmaceutical “free rider” to global innovator over the last decade. In 2010, China accounted for less than 8% of global clinical trials; by 2020, it had surpassed the US in
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China Humanities Seminar featuring Natasha Heller — What is Ecology for a Chan Monk?
Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave. 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United StatesSpeaker: Natasha Heller, University of VirginiaThe “ecocritical turn” has reached premodern studies and Asian humanities, but both contexts present significant challenges. Although the nonhuman world and the experience of it would have been different in meaningful ways a millennium ago, can we understand “green readings” of Buddhist literature? Is it possible to recover “environmental thought”
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Critical Issues Confronting China Series featuring Dongsheng Zang — China’s Great Leap Forward to AI Supremacy
CGIS South S020, Belfer Case Study Room 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA, United StatesSpeaker: 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
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What Would a Rational and Effective U.S.-China Trade Policy Look Like? Is One Still Possible?
WCC B015, Wasserstein Hall 1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MassachusettsSpeaker: Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative (2021-2025) Ambassador Katherine C. Tai served as the 19th United States Trade Representative. As a member of President Biden’s Cabinet, Ambassador Tai was the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy from March 2021 to January 2025. Prior to her unanimous Senate confirmation, Ambassador Tai spent