Speaker Series

Each year, the CSCC invites leading experts to Penn to present their research and share their knowledge about contemporary China. Typically scheduled for Wednesday afternoons 4:30-6 pm, speakers will deliver their remarks and then entertain questions from the audience. Attendance is open to the entire Penn community. Announcements about upcoming talks will be posted on the CSCC website and disseminated via the Center’s listserv. To be added to the listserv, please visit our signup page https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/cscc-announce.

Upcoming Speaker Series



2024

Political Centralization under Xi Jinping: Strategic Adaptation by Local Cadres

Jessica Teets, Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

Xi Jinping has been centralizing policymaking and supervision of local cadres beginning in 2016. Using survey data of 1,500 cadres in 28 provinces, we analyze the impact of these institutional changes on local cadres…



2024

TBD

Chen Yifeng, Associate Professor, Peking University Law School
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St



2024

High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy

Angela Zhang, Associate Professor of Law, University of Hong Kong
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

Co-sponsored by Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition, Penn Carey Law.

Professor Zhang discusses her new book…



2024

Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarian Rule in China

Jeremy Wallace, Professor of Government, Cornell University
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St



2024

Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics: How Economic Bureaucrats Make Policies and Remake the Chinese State

Yingyao Wang, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

Professor Wang will discuss her forthcoming book titled Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics: How Economic Bureaucrats Make Policies and Remake the Chinese State, by Columbia University Press. Her book…

Past Speaker Series



2023

Viewing History from the Inside: Key Episodes and Crises in US-China Relation, 1985-2020

John Culver, Former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, retired CIA analyst, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

John K. Culver is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) senior intelligence officer with thirty-five years of experience as a leading…



2023

The Art of Useless: Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China

Calvin Hui, Class of 1952 Distinguished Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, College of William & Mary
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

My book, titled The Art of Useless: Fashion, Media, and Consumer Culture in Contemporary China, argues that popular and media…



2023

National Committee on US-China Relations CHINA Town Hall 2023: Onsite Panel & National Live Webcast Watch Party

Nicholas Burns, U.S. Ambassador to China (webinar) & Naima Green-Riley, Junyi Lv, & Weirong Guo (onsite at Penn)
- 2nd Floor Forum, Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, 133 S. 36th St

Co-sponsored by Foreign Policy Research Institute

Current U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns will be the featured speaker for CHINA Town Hall 2023, a national conversation on how the…



2023

Law & Political Economy in China's New Era

Tamar Groswald Ozery,  Assistant Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

The talk will discuss the role of formal law in governing markets during China's "Legalized Politicization Era" (2010–present), the current era of market development in China. In this present era, the authorities…



2023

Making China Policy in Washington

Ryan Hass, Senior Fellow, Director, China Center; Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies, Brookings Institution
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

A new CSCC series presents speakers with experience in the processes that shape US policy on China who provide insider perspectives as they reflect on their work, their contribution to the understanding of…



2023

Rule by Campaign: Do Laws on the Books Matter in China?

John Wagner Givens, Associate Professor of International Studies, Spelman College
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

Does rule of law govern behavior in China or do campaigns, scandals, and social media hold more sway? Drawing from a unique dataset of 15 million observations, we delve into environmental issues, suing the…



2023

Global Development: A Useful Notion?

Zha Daojiong, Professor of International Studies, Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, Peking University
- CSCC Conference Room, PCPSE Room 418, 133 S. 36th St

“Development” is traditionally a contested notion in studies and practices of international political-economic exchange. What sense can be made of proposition from China, including its “Global Development Initiative…



2023

Crossing the Strait? PLA Modernization and Taiwan

Phillip Saunders, Ph.D., Director, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University
- CSCC Conference Room, 133 S. 36th St, Room 418

Drawing upon the new book Crossing the Strait: China’s Military Prepares for War with Taiwan, Dr. Saunders will discuss China’s…



2023

The Informal Rules of the Chinese Communist Party

Ewan Smith, Associate Professor of Public Law, University College London; Hauser Global Fellow, New York University Law School
- CSCC Conference Room, 133 S. 36th St, Room 418

Professor Smith discusses his recent China Quarterly article "On the …



2023

The Regulation of Prostitution in China: Law in the Everyday Lives of Sex Workers, Police Officers, and Public Health Officials

Margaret Boittin, Assistant Professor of Law, York University
- CSCC Conference Room, 133 S. 36th St, Room 418

Professor Boittin discusses her book, The Regulation of Prostitution in China: Law in the Everyday Lives of Sex Workers, Police Officers, and Public Health Officials, forthcoming with Cambridge University…