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
David Nelson Rowe, China, and How the History of IR’s New Right Was Lost
Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
“Simply put, China was an integral part of what made the “New Right” new. –Joyce Mao
“Twenty years is about the length of time it takes a group of academics to storm the ramparts, take the…
China and Climate Change: Transnational Science, Politics, and Policy in Historical Perspectives
Zuoyue Wang, Professor of History, California State Polytechnic University
In the burgeoning field of historical studies of climate change, few studies exist that focus on Chinese policy making and US-China scientific interactions in the early years. In this talk I review Chinese public…
A Case for Dualism in the Chinese Legal System
Hualing Fu, Professor of Law, Warren Chan Professor in Human Rights and Responsibilities, University of Hong Kong
The Chinese legal system embodies a unique duality under a constitutional trinity: the Communist Party's leadership, responsiveness to popular demand, and legality. The Party's dominance is central, and its prerogative…
Guanchang Meixue: Heart Distress and Aesthetic Attunement in China’s Bureaucracy
Jie Yang, Professor of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University
The “aesthetic turn” in both political thought and mental health care centers around Western aesthetics and Euro-American psychology. This paper attempts to indigenize both by focusing on “bureaucratic aesthetics” in…
The Future of the South China Sea Dispute: Perspectives from the Philippines
Justice Antonio Carpio, Supreme Court of the Philippines
Co-sponsored by Perry World House.
The South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea remain geopolitically fraught locations. The People’s Republic of China has successfully militarized the region…
TBA
Elizabeth Wishnick, Senior Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Past Speaker Series
End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise
Carl Minzner, Professor of Law, Fordham University
In conversation with Neysun A. Mahboubi, Research Associate, Center for the Study of Contemporary China
Cosponsored by the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy
Testing Legislator Responsiveness in Single-Party Regimes: A Field Experiment in Vietnam with Possible Lessons for China
Edmund Malesky, Professor of Political Science, Duke University
This research aims to establish whether targeted provision of constituent preferences increases the responsiveness of delegates to the Vietnamese National Assembly (VNA). Utilizing a randomized control trial (RCT),…
Quid Pro Quo, Knowledge Spillovers and Industrial Quality Upgrading
Judith and Marshall Meyer Lectures on China’s Economy
Jie Bai, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Are quid pro quo policies effective in facilitating knowledge transfers to developing countries? We study this question in the context of the Chinese automobile industry where foreign firms are…
Escaping Import Competition and Downstream Tariffs in China
Ann Harrison, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
This research proposes and provides evidence for a new source of gains from trade: Firms invest in product differentiation to escape import competition. In the data and in the model, these investments are associated…
Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience
Rongbin Han, Assistant Professor of International Affairs, University of Georgia
The talk will be focusing on the struggles over online expression in China in order to answering the following question: Why has the rise of Internet thus far failed to disrupt the Chinese party-state, as many have…
The Political Beliefs of Chinese Officials
Greg Distelhorst, Mitsubishi Career Development Professor in International Management, MIT
What are the stated beliefs of officials in China’s single-party regime? Can they express different views on policy, and if so, do their disagreements reflect deeper ideological orientations? We study these questions…
Manipulating Globalization: The Influence of Bureaucrats on Business in China
Ling Chen, Assistant Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Although China is a global manufacturing titan, the "made in China" model has begun to wane. Starting in the 2000s, China shifted from attracting foreign investment to promoting domestic firms. This shift led…
(CANCELLED) Migration, Social Institutions, and Popular Resistance in Rural China
Yao Lu, Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
How does migration shape collective resistance in migrant-sending communities (rural China)? This study integrates perspectives from social movements and migration to develop a framework in which migration…
2018 CHINA Town Hall
U.S.-China Relations: Can We Avoid Calamity?
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice, 66th U.S. Secretary of State and Former National Security Advisor; Douglas Spelman, Senior Advisor, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Join communities across the United States in a national conversation on China. Featuring an interactive national webcast at 6pm with former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor…
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Barriers to Entry and Regional Economic Growth in China
Judith and Marshall Meyer Lectures on China’s Economy
Loren Brandt, Professor of Economics, University of Toronto
The non-state manufacturing sector has been the engine of China's economic transformation. Up through the mid-1990s, the sector exhibited large regional differences; subsequently we observe rapid convergence in…
