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
TBA
Peng Peng, Assistant Professor of Political Science & Global Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
TBA
Yanbai Andrea Wang, Assistant Professor of Law, Penn Carey Law
Pensions and the Politics of Retirement Age Reform in China
Mark Frazier, Professor of Politics, New School for Social Research
Raising legal retirement ages, also known as retirement age reform, is politically contentious worldwide, but it should be more easily pursued in non-democratic regimes that can effectively deter opponents from…
The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China
Shitong Qiao, Professor of Law, Duke University
Based on six-year fieldwork across China including over 200 in-depth interviews, Qiao’s new book The…
China and Climate Change: Transnational Science, Politics, and Policy in Historical Perspectives
Zuoyue Wang, Professor of History, California State Polytechnic University
Negotiating Legality: Chinese Companies in the US Legal System
Ji Li, John S. & Marilyn Long Chair of US-China Business and Law, UC Irvine
Despite escalating geopolitical rivalry, the US and China continue to be economically intertwined. Numerous Chinese companies have made substantial investments in the US and are reluctant to exit this strategically…
From Empire to Nation-State: War, Emulation, and National Identity in China
Jie Yang, Professor of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University
This article examines when, why, and how national identity emerged in China. We argue that war acted as a catalyst for two distinct psychological mechanisms: enmity (humiliation and other negative emotions) and…
TBA
Elizabeth Wishnick, Senior Research Scholar, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Past Speaker Series
Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall
Margaret Roberts, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California San Diego
As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be ineffective because they are easily thwarted…
Understanding China's Increasing Role in Global Clean Energy Innovation
Joanna Lewis, Associate Professor of Science, Technology and International Affairs, Georgetown University
China’s rapid rise to become the largest investor in and user of clean energy technologies in the world has simultaneously cast it as both an international climate leader and an unfair competitor. How is China…
Economic Impacts of the US-China Trade Conflict on Developing Asia and the US
Bart Édes, Asian Development Bank Representative for North America
The 2018 trade conflict between the United States and the People’s Republic of China has affected not only bilateral…
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…
