Events

‌Ongoing series

• LUCC Research Seminar Series: LUCC's research seminar series, presenting new research on China across all fields, from LUCC fellows and outside presenters.
• LUCC Interdisciplinary Roundtable Lunches: bringing together academics across disciplines to discuss key issues facing China-engaged research at a time of rapid technological change and rising geopolitical tension.
• LUCC PhD Seminars: LUCC provides a PhD seminar series for postgraduate students working on, in, or with China to present and discuss their work over lunch at Lancaster University.

Recordings of many past events are available on LUCC's YouTube channel.

To stay informed of all our upcoming events, please sign up to our mailing list at: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk.

For past issues of our Newsletter, see LUCC News.

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Upcoming Events

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Workshop

Sino-Foreign Research Collaboration: The Funding Landscape

Time: Michaelmas 2023-24

Place: TBA - places limited, please register interest at china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

According to Elsevier, China is the UK’s third biggest single-country partner for collaborative research, after the USA and Germany. Collaborative research output almost doubled over the five years from 2014 to 2018. However, China’s research and innovation landscape is hugely diverse and complex, with recognised challenges and risks inherent in engagement. This workshop is aimed to facilitate joint UK-China research and development programmes in Lancaster University by exploring opportunities and trends in funding opportunities for research on, in and with China. This includes the complexities and opportunities of China’s national and regional research and innovation funding agencies, along with trends in funding from UK funding agencies and further afield.

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Research Seminar

Why Does the West Get So Much Wrong About China?: Reflections on 33 Years of Straddling the Border

Speaker: Howard Davies, Hong Kong Polytechnic

Time: Michaelmas 2023-24

Place: Online via Teams – link available from china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

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Laughing, Lost in the Mountains: Towards a New Modality of Seeing Organizations

Research Seminar

Speaker: Ant Hesketh, LUMS

Time: Michaelmas 2023-24

Place: TBA – register interest at china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

Researchers have long asserted the distorting elements of the calculative practices deployed by managers to underpin the financialization of large swathes of organizational processes, yet the quantum form stubbornly remains the undisputed currency of business value. At the heart of this superiority lies a delicious irony: even the dominant – or “Big Four” – accounting firms formally recognise that, at best, only half of the total enterprise value of our largest organizations can be formally calculated using conventional and formally recognised accounting methodologies. If the way in which wider society values “value” is changing, and existing accounting practices are not evolving to keep pace through a combination of overly prescriptive normalisation and lack of innovation, might it be time to consider augmenting, if not replacing, the quantum form with alternative modalities of value? Why not replace the science of calculation with the imagination of art? Might the depiction – or art-iculation – through art be a more effective way to visually convey a firm’s assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity, as opposed to relying on the calculative imaginaries of speculative future projections used to discount today’s prices?

In this session we will explore possible insights offered by the semiotic disruptions and dialectics between different historical epochs, geographical regions and their genres of depiction and explore possible departure points for art-iculation offered by different ocular, temporal and spatial dimensions. In this seminar, my focus will be on exploring how the expression of art in Chinese shanshui painting (literally mountain and water) offers alternative modalities of art-iculation to the hylomorphism and geometric art which (re)emerged in, and has dominated Western philosophy and art since, the Renaissance.

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Interdisciplinary Roundtable

Navigating the Security Minefield Amid Rising Geopolitical Tensions

Time: Lent 2023-2024

Places limited, please register interest at china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

Rising geopolitical tensions are giving rise to security challenges as well as an increasingly broad scope of national security in the UK and elsewhere. Against this backdrop, this roundtable examines how researchers can proactively and responsibly ensure their work with China is secure, does not contribute to harm, and doesn’t fall foul of evolving government regulatory regimes.

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Recent Events

• LUCC events in 2022
• LUCC events in 2021
• LUCC events in 2020
• LUCC events in 2019

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10 August 2023

Summer Session

Cultivating Dragon Eggs: Transcultural teaching and learning as transformational education

Time: 1pm-2.30pm, Thursday 10 August, 2023

Place: County South, B59 meeting room

Speakers: Dr. Chris Longman (Educational Development) and Dr. Lingxia Zhou (DeLC), Lancaster University

This session will explore how students’ educational expectations (based on their previous educational experiences and beliefs about what education is) may not match the expectations of UK Higher Education institutions such as Lancaster. The session will dig a little deeper than an approach which looks at providing new academic skills and language support - important though these things are - and focus on educational beliefs and values which students may have when they arrive to undertake undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at Lancaster.

We will explore how teachers can appreciate the influence of different educational perspectives on learning and classroom dynamics, and how to understand the opportunities and value such different perspectives can present, fostering greater transcultural understanding, and leading to the development of a more authentic ‘international classroom’. We will focus on East Asian and Chinese students as an example, though much or our exploration could apply to other international students and some categories of home students as well.

This session will not present results of a research project, but rather will be a forum for discussion and sharing ideas. The session will start with some personal reflections from Lingxia and Chris, and will then seek to explore the issues more broadly amongst attendees.

Dr. Chris Longman has nearly 40 years of educational experience in a variety of roles, almost always within an international context. Chris is currently an Educational Developer at Lancaster University, responsible for staff development with Lancaster’s international partners, including LUC@BJTU in China. Prior to working at Lancaster, he worked at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, and before that at the University of Exeter.

Dr Lingxia (Jocelin) Zhou is a Lecturer in Chinese and CI Teaching Lead at the Department of Languages and Cultures. She has more than 15 years of teaching experience in North America, UK and East Asia and is currently convening the entirety of the Chinese language modules at Lancaster. She taught at Princeton University, Waseda University and SOAS before joining Lancaster.

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31 July 2023

Interdisciplinary Roundtable

Mapping China-Related Research Across Disciplines: Trajectories, Opportunities and Challenges

Time: 12pm-130pm, Monday July 31, 2023

Place: The event is invitation-only but if you have relevant experience or expertise, please express your interest by sending an email to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk online attendance via Teams is also available for those who wish to attend remotely.

Speakers:

• Andrew Chubb, Director, LUCC
• Yunyan Li, Research Lead, LUCC

A roundtable lunch mapping Lancaster’s research on, in and with China – broadly understood, encompassing the Sinophone world – and identifying future opportunities and challenges.

The roundtable will kick off with a brief introduction of the LU China Research Dashboard, a new resource that will visualise China-linked research across all disciplines of the university. Under development with generous support from the FASS Research Culture fund, the Dashboard is designed to help identify our existing strengths and support new opportunities for cross-disciplinary synergies and collaboration.

Discussion will then open up to consider the outlook for China-related research at Lancaster, including international collaboration across various disciplines, in an environment marked by challenges and uncertainties in global science.

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22 June 2023

PhD Seminar Series

Global Aspirations and National Concerns: The Chinese Film Industry in the Last Decade

Speaker: Giorgio Ceccarelli, Ca’Foscari University of Venice & Lyon 3 Jean Moulin University

Time: 1-2pm, Thursday 22 June, 2023

Place: Charles Carter A17 - light refreshment provided for in-person attendees, please https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-Giorgio

The Chinese film industry has experienced remarkable growth and transformation over the past few decades, emerging as a prominent player on the global cinematic stage. The industry and the market witnessed and were influenced by the impact of the arrival of the three digital giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent and their digital resources and SVOD platforms. One of the objectives of the leadership is making Chine a global powerhouse also in the film business, hence allowing more private initiative so to expand its influence on the global cinematic stage through co-productions, international film festivals, and overseas market penetration. However, the focus on educational function and social benefits of cinema has never been abandoned, on the contrary, the centenary of the CCP saw a resurgence of mass-produced propaganda films, and the return to a nationalistic narration. By analyzing these dualistic forces, the presentation sheds light on the intricate dynamics shaping the Chinese film industry's trajectory over the past decade. It contributes to the broader discourse on globalization, national identity, and the evolving relationship between the global film industry and state power. Understanding this complex interplay is crucial for comprehending the current state and future prospects of Chinese cinema in the global arena.

Bio: Giorgio Ceccarelli is currently enrolled in a Joint PhD between Lyon 3 Jean Moulin University and Ca’Foscari University of Venice. His research revolves around the development of the Chinese film industry and the policies that are governing it.

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22 May 2023

Exhibition Opening

Back to the Clouds — The Ritual of Pagoda

Artist: Hao Yang, LUCC / LICA;

Curator Yuhong Lei, LUCC / Education Research

Time: May 22, 4pm (Opening event), exhibition will run through May 22-27, 2023

Place: The Storey Gallery, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH

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18 May 2023

Research seminar

Transnational media production from the margins of ‘cultural China’

Speaker: Siao Yuong Fong (Rong)

Time: 1-230pm, Thursday 18 May, 2023

Place: FASS Meeting Room A008 (next to Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre) **LUNCH SERVED - RSVP ESSENTIAL BY 11 MAY to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk**

Situated on the mercurial edge between existing dominant global hegemony of the West, and the rise of the PRC as a producer of mass culture, Singapore’s transnational media producers seeking work opportunities with the PRC occupy a unique position to observe how these geopolitical and sociocultural changes impact on localized creative work practices. As a young postcolonial nation-state and the most Westernized country in Southeast Asia with a majority ethnic Chinese population, Singapore finds itself caught in between the demands of Western and Chinese hegemony, while being an outsider to both. Often deemed by their mainland China counterparts as lacking in ‘Chineseness’, how do Singaporean producers imagine commonalities, differences, connections and disconnections in the practice of transnational media production? What are these producers’ concerns, strategies and tactics in overcoming obstacles in their sociocultural capital and networks?

Bio: Siao Yuong Fong (Rong) is Lecturer of Global Media and Inequality at the Sociology department, Lancaster University. Her first book Performing Fear in Television Production: Practices of an illiberal democracy (Amsterdam University Press, 2022) is an ethnographic study of authoritarian media production in Singapore. Her current research focuses on how the Southeast Asian Sinosphere experiences the global rise of China in the realms of media.

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3 May 2023

Research seminar

Exploring Women’s Lived Experience with the Human Dignity Approach: A Case Study from Rural and Urban China

Speaker: Yunyan Li, LUMS

Time, 1-230pm, Wednesday 3 May, 2023

Place: Charles Carter A16 - *LUNCH SERVED - RSVP ESSENTIAL BY 26 APRIL to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk **

Profound demographic and socio-economic transitions since the 1980s have reshaped the everyday lives of women with children in contemporary China, as has the interaction between China’s modernisation and the transformation of Confucianism. This research explores five interlinked dimensions of these women’s lived experiences: physical and psychological well-being, care relations, social integration, self-determination, and equal value. The empirical evidence reveals the rationale behind women’s different strategies, bringing to the fore how rural and urban women’s heterogeneous experiences are reconfigured by the interaction of social stratifications of gender, places and generations. The findings can inform policy initiatives to address institutional and spatial barriers facing women with children, promote the equal value of paid and unpaid care work, and fulfil women’s changing needs.

Speaker bio: Yunyan Li is Senior Research Associate in the Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department at Lancaster University Management School. Her work forcuses on how the recalibration of institutional arrangements in socio-economic reform and the welfare system in rural and urban China affect women’s lived experiences under the interaction between modernisation and transforming Confucianism.

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20 March 2023

PhD Seminar Series

Securitisation and Subjectification: National Security Institutes’ Rhetoric towards Chinese International Scholars amidst International Technological Rivalry

Speaker: Eric de Roulet, University of British Columbia

Time: Monday, 20 March, 3pm-4pm

Place: Online via teams - register at https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-ERIC

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14 March 2023

Research Seminar

Cross-Cultural Interaction: Constructional Priming in Mandarin and American English Interaction

Speaker: Vittorio Tantucci, Lancaster University

Time: 1-2pm, Tuesday 14 March

Place: FASS Meeting Room A008 (next to Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre) **LUNCH SERVED - RSVP ESSENTIAL BY 7 MARCH to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk**

Resonance occurs dynamically when interlocutors creatively coconstruct utterances that are formally and phonetically similar to the utterance of a prior speaker. In this study, we argue that such similarity can inform the machine learning prediction of linguistic and cross-cultural diversity. We compared two sets of 1,000 exchanges involving (dis)-agreement from the two balanced Callhome corpora of naturalistic interaction in Mandarin Chinese and American English. We found a correlation of overt use of pragmatic markers with resonance, indicating that priming does not occur as an exclusively implicit mechanism (as it is commonly held in the experimental literature e.g. Bock 1986; Bock et al. 2007), but naturalistically underpins dialogic engagement and cooperation among interactants. The applied results of this study can lead to a novel turn in AI research of conversational interfaces (McTear et al. 2016; Klopfenstein et al. 2017), as they reveal the fundamental role played cross-linguistically by resonance as a form of engagement of human-to-human interaction and the importance to address this mechanism in machine-to-human communication.

Speaker bio: Dr Vittorio Tantucci is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Chinese Linguistics at Lancaster University. Tantucci's research combines synchronic, diachronic and developmental approaches in Pragmatics and Cognitive Linguistics. Tantucci is interested in diachronic phenomena of language change, such as grammaticalization, (inter-)subjectification, chunking, entrenchment, constructionalization and semasiology. Many aspects of his research are centred on both the structure and the usage of typologically different languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and other Sinitic languages, but also Germanic, Romance and other language families which I study from a cognitive and (intercultural-)pragmatic point of view.

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13 March 2023

PhD Seminar Series

Fighting for International Communism? Chinese Youth in Burma in the Mao Era

Speaker: Ning Zhang, Oxford University.

Time: 13 March 2023, 1pm-230pm ** Light refreshments provided - please register at https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-ZHANGNING **

Place: Management School Lecture Theatre 5

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8 March 2023

PhD Seminar Series

A Happy Excursion Against China's Digital Leviathan

Speaker: Hao Yang, LICA

Time 1-230pm, Wednesday 8 March

Place Charles Carter A17 - light refreshments provided, please register at tinyurl.com/LUCC-HAOYANG

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8 February 2023

Research Forum

Xinjiang and Counter-Terrorism Discourse in China

Speakers:

• Chi Zhang, University of St. Andrews
• Beatrice Gallelli, Ca'Foscari University, Venice

Time: 1pm-2.45pm, Wednesday 8 Februrary, 2023

Place: Charles Carter A15 **LUNCH SERVED - RSVP ESSENTIAL BY 1 FEB to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk**

Few issues have had as far-reaching impact on China's relations with the world - economic, technological, political - as Beijing's policies in the Muslim-majority Xinjiang Autonomous Region. From civil society outrage over "re-education camps" in 2018, to the imposition of Western sanctions against officials held responsible for mass human rights violations, to allegations of forced labour in supply chains, to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights raising possible crimes against humanity in September 2022, the Xinjiang issue has driven decoupling, political tensions and a widenin chasm in perceptions between China and the West. Where have these policies come from? What lines of political thinking underpin them? How does China's own discourse about its Xinjiang policies relate to broader discourses in world politics? This unique forum brings together research from two leading experts on the subject, who will address the origins and future of the crisis.

Speaker bio: Chi Zhang is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, and the author of Legitimacy of China's Counter-Terrorism Approach: The Mass Line Ethos (Singapore: Palgrave MacMillan). Beatrice Gallelli is Assistant Professor in Chinese language and translation at Ca'Foscari University of Venice who has written on China's official discourse on Xinjiang.

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24 January 2023

Research Seminar

Pure and True: The Everyday Politics of Ethnicity for China's Hui Muslims

Speaker: David Stroup, University of Manchester

Time: 1-2pm, Tuesday 24 January 2022

Place: FASS A008, Meeting Room 1 - next to Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre - **lunch provided, RSVP essential by 17 January: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

The Chinese Communist Party points to the Hui—China’s largest Muslim ethnic group—as a model ethnic minority and touts its harmonious relations with the group as an example of the Party’s great success in ethnic politics. The Hui number over ten million, but they lack a common homeland or a distinct language, and have long been partitioned by sect, class, region, and language. Despite these divisions, they still express a common ethnic identity. Why doesn’t conflict plague relationships between the Hui and the state? And how do they navigate their ethnicity in a political climate that is increasingly hostile to Muslims? Pure and True draws on interviews with ordinary urban Hui—cooks, entrepreneurs, imams, students, and retirees—to explore the conduct of ethnic politics within Hui communities in the cities of Jinan, Beijing, Xining, and Yinchuan and between Hui and the Chinese party-state. By examining the ways in which Hui maintain ethnic identity through daily practices, it illuminates China’s management of relations with its religious and ethnic minority communities. It finds that amid state-sponsored urbanization projects and in-country migration, the boundaries of Hui identity are contested primarily among groups of Hui rather than between Hui and the state. As a result, understandings of which daily habits should be considered “proper” or “correct” forms of Hui identity diverge along professional, class, regional, sectarian, and other lines. By channeling contentious politics toward internal boundaries, the state is able to manage ethnic politics and exert control.

Speaker bio: David R. Stroup is lecturer in Chinese politics at the University of Manchester.

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7 December 2022

PhD Seminar Series

"I am doing makeup for myself, or am I?" Choice, pleasure and postfeminism in China

Speaker: Ma Hua, University of East Anglia

Time: 1-2pm, Wednesday 7 December, 2022

Place: Faraday Seminar Room 3 - light refreshment provided, please register at httos://tinyurl.com/LUCC-HUAMA-PHD

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6 December 2022

PhD Seminar Series

The interaction between Chinese women's understanding of womanhood and their lived experience in UK higher education

Speaker: Qiao Dai, University of Glasgow

Time: 1-2pm, Tuesday 6 December 2022

Place: Online, register at https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-DAIQIAO

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23 November 2022

Research Seminar

International Law as Driver of Confrontation: UNCLOS and China’s Policy in the South China Sea

Speaker: Andrew Chubb, Lancaster University China Centre

Time: 12-1pm, Wednesday, 23 November 2022 - co-hosted by the Centre for International Law and Human Rights

Place: Marcus Merriman LT, and via Teams: https://tinyurl.com/AndrewChubb

Debates over international legal regimes, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), have tended to revolve around the constraints international law may or may not place on confrontational state behavior, leaving its constitutive aspects underexplored. This article offers a counterintuitive explanation for why tensions in the South China Sea have risen, not declined, in the UNCLOS era. The new international regime reconstituted China and its neighbours’ interests in jurisdiction at sea, producing harder, yet also more ambiguous claims. Tracing four representative cases of China’s new and assertive patterns of behavior in the South China Sea in 2007-2008, it shows how the new challenges and opportunities presented by the implementation of the legal regime were crucial drivers of Beijing’s policy shift on its maritime periphery. Using PRC maritime law enforcement agency materials, internal government advisory papers, State Department cables, official statements and research interviews, the paper identifies three causal pathways linking the UNCLOS with China’s altered behavior. International law not only constrains confrontational state actions, but can also authorize, enable, and catalyze them.

Speaker bio: Andrew Chubb is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, researching the relationships between Chinese domestic politics and international relations. He is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy (Naval War College Press, 2021) and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia (Routledge and Royal United Services Institute, 2021). Andrew is also acting director of the Lancaster University China Centre, and a Fellow of the Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society.

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22 November 2022

Research Seminar

Governance of Food Systems in China: a pork story on sustainability and resilienc

Speaker: Lingxuan Liu, Lancaster University Management School

Time: Tuesday 22 November 1.00pm-2.00pm

Place: FASS A008, Meeting Room 1 (beside Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre)

** LUNCH PROVIDED registration essential, please register at: https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-Liu **

Home of the world’s first strategic pork reserve, China's pork supply chains have experienced dramatic disturbances in recent years. This study examines how various contradictory pressures and policy responses have shaped the pork system in China. Pork-related policy priorities have swung between environmental sustainability and production recovery. Public authorities' weighing of sustainability and resilience has also led to contrasting views on policy formulation and implementation. Reorientation of the pork system for environmental sustainability undermined the system’s robustness to cope with the African Swine Flu epidemic, while dedicated policies on recovery have further compromised the original goals of systemic reorientation. We also discussed how governance has affected the resilience of the pork system and the trade-offs between systemic resilience and sustainability.

Speaker bio: Lingxuan Liu joined Lancaster University Management School in March 2016 as a Lecturer of Sustainability. His research interests include sustainable supply chains, sustainable and resilient food systems, corporate sustainability strategies, and ESG. He specializes in business sustainability issues in UK and China, but also has a general interest in developing countries, particularly Southeast Asia and Africa.

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16 November 2022

Roundtable

Classroom Strategies for Engaging International Students

Time: 1-2pm, Wednesday 16 November 2022

Speakers:

• Ann-Marie Houghton (Dean of EDI)
• Christine Mortimer (LUC-BJTU)
• Zoe Zhu (LUMS)
• Chris Longman (Educational Development)
• Leandro Soriano Marcolino (Computing and Communications)
• Tim Douglas (Engineering)

How to generate engagement from students who may be more accustomed to passive forms of learning? What are the ethics of teaching critical thinking to students in jurisdictions where its application may have negative consequences? A lengthening list of topics have become politically “sensitive,” for example Taiwan and Xinjiang for China, or the monarchy in Saudi Arabia; how best to cover such topics in the classroom without self-censoring or causing unnecessary offence? This roundtable discussion will tackle key themes of practice, ethics and principle in the internationalised classroom.

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26 October 2022

Book Launch

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries

Speaker:

• Dr. Sunny Xin Liu, UCLAN
• Prof. Kerry Brown, KCL
• Dr. Derek Hird, DeLC

Time: 2pm-330pm (UK time), 26 October 2022

Place: Fylde LT2 A16, Lancaster University. ** LIGHT REFRESHMENT PROVIDED for in-person attendees, please register at: https://tinyurl.com/2p9fupvp **

From Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Chinese Emperor Wanli in 1583 and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War in 1840, Dr. Sunny Xin Liu’s new book explores Britain and China’s long journey from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. In this seminar, Dr. Liu will share fascinating tales of long-forgotten Sino-British interactions from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists.

Joining Dr. Liu in conversation will be eminent China expert Professor Kerry Brown, Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London and one of the UK's leading China experts, and Dr. Derek Hird, Head of Department of Languages and Cultures at Lancaster University.

Speaker bio: Sunny Xin Liu received her PhD in China’s Cultural Diplomacy from University of Central Lancashire. Her research interests lie in public diplomacy, cultural studies, media and communication, and China’s relations with the West.

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21 June 2022

Book Roundtable

Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance

Speakers:

• Jinghan Zeng (Politics, Philosophy and Religion / Confucius Institute)
• Leandro Soriano Marcolino (Computing and Communications)
• Mark Lacy (Security Lancaster)
• Yitian Zhang (Centre for International Law and Human Rights)
• Andrew Chubb (Lancaster University China Centre)

Time: 1-2pm, 21 June 2022

Place:

• In-person **LUNCH PROVIDED - RSVP ESSENTIAL BY 14 JUNE: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk**
• Online via Teams: register here

Join the author of this landmark new book, Professor Jinghan Zeng, and a panel of expert discussants for a far-reaching discussion of one of the key issues spanning cutting-edge science, politics and the future of societies in the twenty-first century.

This book provides the first book-length study focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Chinese characteristics, in line with China’s open ambition of becoming an AI superpower by 2030. China’s unique domestic politics has developed distinct characteristics for its AI approach. By analysing national strategy, security and governance aspects of AI in China, this book argues that China’s AI approach is sophisticated and multifaceted, and it has brought about both considerable benefits and challenges to China. The book suggests that a more accurate understanding of AI with Chinese characteristics is essential in order to inform the debate regarding what lessons can be learnt from China’s AI approach and how to respond to China’s rise as the AI leader, if not superpower.

Speaker bio: Jinghan Zeng is Professor of China and International Studies at Lancaster University. His research focuses on China’s domestic and international politics. He is the author of Slogan Politics: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy Concepts (2020) and The Chinese Communist Party's Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion (2015). He is also the co-editor of One Belt, One Road, One Story?: Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (2021).

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16 June 2022

Report Launch

Rights Protection: How the UK Should Respond to the PRC's Overseas Influence

Speakers:

• Andrew Chubb (Lancaster University);
• Eva Pils, (King's College London);
• Yuan Yi Zhu (Oxford University);
• Yue He Parkinson (FT中文)

Time: 530pm-7pm, 16 June 2022

Place: King's College London, Strand Campus - register here

This paper addresses challenges posed by the PRC's influence in the UK, with particular attention to threats to the political and academic freedoms of Chinese diaspora communities in the UK. It calls for policy makers to clearly differentiate between threats to national security, human rights and academic freedom, and recommends practical policy responses tailored to the specific problems. Join us for a panel discussion with the author and a diverse group of experts, to explore the key takeaways of this policy paper, and the recommendations for governments and universities. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and a networking drinks reception. The event is jointly organised with the Lau China Institute at King's College London.

Speaker bio: Dr Andrew Chubb is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Lancaster University, researching China's foreign relations, and Acting Director of the Lancaster University China Centre. He is the author of PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia (Routledge & Royal United Services Institute, 2021), and a member of the Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group (AFIWG), which has developed a Model Code of Conduct for universities to uphold academic freedom in the context of internationalisation of higher education. His recent articles can be found in International Security, Journal of Contemporary China, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.

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Tuesday 14 June 2022

Research Seminar Series

Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Millennium Transformation

Speaker: Da Hsuan Feng, Hainan University

Time: 3pm-4pm (UK time), 14 June 2022

Place: Online via Teams, to join please register here.

This is a book on the Belt and Road Initiative, written from an unusual perspective – someone born in India but raised in Singapore; who has never spent a day of schooling in the Greater China but has Chinese heritage; and who eventually built a long and distinguished career in the West. The author took an off-the-beaten-path approach that asks how such an initiative, began entirely by China, can impact and transform the millennium mindset of Chinese. He argues such a transformation shall render a new definition of what a 'powerful nation' in the 21st century should be, for the betterment of humanity. This is unlike the changes made by Western civilization for many centuries since the Renaissance days. Three main outcomes of the BRI have been embedded directly or indirectly throughout the book: Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications. The author felt that these three outcomes offer possible mitigation for a world facing existential challenges in the 21st century.

Speaker bio: Da Hsuan Feng is Honorary Dean of Hainan University Belt and Road Research Institute and the Chief Advisor of China Silk Road iValley Research Institute. He grew up in Singapore and received his physics PhD from the University of Minnesota (1972). He was the M Russell Wehr Chair Professor of Drexel University. He also served as the United States National Science Foundation Program Director in Theoretical Physics for two years.

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Tuesday 24 May 2022

Research Seminar Series

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability-Led Innovation: A study of automotive joint ventures in China

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Rebecca Liu, Lancaster University

Time: 1pm-2pm, 24 May 2022

Place:

• In-person: Charles Carter A19 (Executive Suite) - lunch provided, please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
• Online via Teams, to join please register here.

What is the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice and sustainability-led innovation in automotive joint ventures (JVs) in China? Building on neo-institutional perspective together with legitimacy, stakeholder and resource-based theories, we envisage a multiple-case study to explore the link between the practice of CSR and sustainability-led innovation in three leading automotive JVs in China - SAIC Volkswagen, Fujian Benz and BMW Brilliance.

Results suggest that Chinese automotive IJVs practice CSR with a hybridization approach in two ways: (a) managerial leadership that highlights bidirectional interaction (East vs. West; and Coordinated vs. Liberal); and (b) structural cooperation that underscores technological advancement aiming for a harmonized society. Our study sheds light in how joint venture actors with different cultures and social values, practice CSR in a cooperative manner that eventually leads to sustainability-led innovation, providing an alternative option to policymakers and managers who used to divorce CSR from business/economic objectives.

Speaker bio: Rebecca Liu is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Lancaster University Management School. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, focusing on innovation, cross-cultural study, cooperation and networking, knowledge management and learning, and SME engagement in China.

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Monday 4 April 2022

Research Seminar Series

Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China's Rise

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Lee Jones, Queen Mary University of London

Time: 1-2.30pm, 4 April 2022

Place:

• In-person: Charles Carter A19 (Executive Suite) - lunch provided, please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
• Available online via Teams, to join please register here.

Is China's rise a threat to international order? In Fractured China, Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri show that it depends on what one means by 'China', for China is not the monolithic, unitary actor that many assume. Forty years of state transformation – the fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of party-state apparatuses – have profoundly changed how its foreign policy is made and implemented. Today, Chinese behaviour abroad is often not the product of a coherent grand strategy, but results from a sometimes-chaotic struggle for power and resources among contending politico-business interests, within a surprisingly permissive Chinese-style regulatory state. Presenting a path-breaking new analytical framework, Jones and Hameiri transform the central debate in International Relations and provides new tools for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand and respond to twenty-first century rising powers. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in China and Southeast Asia, Fractured China includes three major case studies – the South China Sea, non-traditional security cooperation, and development financing–to demonstrate the framework's explanatory power.

Speaker bio: Lee Jones is Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Lee specialises in political economy and international relations, focusing on the politics of intervention, security, and governance, with a particular interest in social conflict and the transformation of states. Much of his work focuses on Southeast Asia and China.

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Tuesday 22 March 2022

Research Seminar Series

Weddings, Funerals, and Banquets: The Impact of Guanxi on Political Representation in Taiwan

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Tao Wang, University of Manchester

Time: 1pm-230pm, 22 March, 2022

Place:

• FASS A008 Meeting Room 1 (next to Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre) - lunch provided, please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
• Online via Teams, to join please register here.

“The funeral home was like his second office.” On average, a Taiwanese MP receives 31 requests a week from constituents to attend funerals. Why are voters interested in having MPs present at private funerals? Drawing on evidence from in-depth interviews and observation, this study focuses on the role of guanxi, the Chinese term for particularistic ties. Voters in a guanxi society are inclined to show off their particularistic ties with Very Important People. Since national lawmakers are figures of power, this tendency among voters keeps Taiwanese legislators exceptionally busy attending private weddings, funerals, and banquets, often at the expense of attentiveness to national policy. The study concludes that guanxi culture brings constituency focus to the fore of Taiwan’s political representation, shedding some light on the ramification of political culture on democratic consolidation.

Speaker bio: Tao Wang (PhD, University of Manchester, 2021) is Research Associate at the Manchester China Institute. His research interests lie in the fields of political culture, democratisation, and nationalism, with a focus on East Asia. His research was recently published in Foreign Affairs, Journal of Contemporary China, and World Affairs.

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Tuesday 8 March 2022

Research Seminar Series

Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Language Campaigns in China — A Regional Comparison

Speaker: Jocelin Lingxia Zhou, Lancaster University

Time: 1pm-2pm, 8 March 2022

Place: Online via Teams, to join please register here.

In recent years, “dialect-protection” campaigns have emerged in major Chinese “dialect” speaking areas in the People's Republic of China. In more economically developed regions and individualized societies, local “dialect” speakers are more assertive and vocal about their linguistic rights and the preservation of the local language and culture. However, awareness of linguistic diversity and appreciation of the local community language can be raised through the power of mass media and consciousness-raising by celebrities, as shown in the case of Hunan. Those campaigns challenge the linguistic hegemony created by the PRC national language policy of Mandarin promotion, and foster regional varieties of Chinese language that are under pressure from the onslaught of Mandarin promotion policies, as well massive internal migration and globalization. The response of the PRC central government shows the Chinese Communist Party's negotiation with an increasingly individualistic Chinese society as a strategy to enhance its "consultative Leninism", without negating the promotion of the official language aimed at reinforcing nationalism and a homogeneous Chinese national identity. 

Speaker bio: Jocelin Lingxia Zhou is Confucius Institute Teaching Lead and Lecturer in Chinese at the Department of Languages and Cultures (DeLC) at Lancaster University. Jocelin’s research investigates language policy and campaigns in China from the perspectives of sociolinguistics and political science.

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