The February 2023 edition of LUCC's newsletter is out.

You can read the newsletter via our mailing list - just send an email to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

LUCC News: February 2023

Happy 兔 Year, and welcome to the first LUCC News of 2023.

LUCC’s Research Seminar Series and PhD Seminar program (pictured above) are back in full swing, with a terrific turnout for our January 24 research seminar with the University of Manchester's David Stroup presenting his new book on China's Hui Muslims, Pure and True.

LUCC also launched an interdisciplinary roundtable lunch series tackling the trickiest topics facing China-engaged researchers, and providing actionable policy proposals to meet the challenges. The first two roundtables in 2022 covered China and Artificial Intelligence (June 2022, pictured below), and Engaging the International Classroom (November 2022), and this year we will cover the Funding Landscape for China-related research, and Navigating the Security Minefield amidst intensifying geopolitical tensions.

The Year of the Hare is set to be a year of rapid and unpredictable developments in the China research space. It's LUCC's mission to support researchers across all disciplines to navigate the opportunities, challenges, scale and complexities of international China-related research.

Read on below for introductions to our new fellows, the latest new research and outreach, and opportunities to engage with Chinese culture around campus.

Upcoming Events

8 February 2023

Xinjiang and Counter-Terrorism Discourse in China

Research Forum

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 3 FEB tochina.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

14 March 2023

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

Research Seminar

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

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

PhD Seminar

Speaker: Ning Zhang, Oxford University.

Time: TBA - register interest at china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

Place: TBA

Sino-Foreign Research Collaboration: The Evolving Funding Landscape

Interdisciplinary Roundtable

Time: April 2023

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

Sino-Foreign Research Collaboration: Navigating the Security Minefield

Interdisciplinary Roundtable

Time: Summer term

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

People

LUCC is thrilled to introduce three new fellows, media scholar Siao Yuong Fong (Rong) and education researchers Yuhong Lei and Panagiota (Penny) Tzanni.

Siao Yuong Fong (Rong) joins LUCC as a China Expert Fellow. Rong is a Lecturer in Global Media and Inequality in the Sociology Department, working at the intersections of Media and Cultural Studies, Production Studies and Asian Studies. She is researching media production links between China and the Southeast Asian Sinosphere, Chinese-language media practices, and authoritarian media and censorship.

Yuhong Lei is a PhD researcher in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University. Her interests are in technology-enhanced learning, academic procrastination, and Chinese students’ learning experience. Currently, her research focuses on the reasons behind academic procrastination among Chinese university students. As a LUCC Doctoral Fellow, Yuhong is co-ordinating the LUCC PhD Seminar Series.

Panagiota (Penny) Tzanni is a PhD student in Technology-Enhanced Learning and Eresearch. She interested in exploring how hybrid professional development can empower Chinese educators and help them integrate more technology in their teaching practice. As a LUCC Doctoral Fellow, Penny is also a joint co-ordinator of the LUCC PhD Seminar Series this year.

Profiles of all LUCC’s fellows are available at our People page.

Research News

China Beyond China: Infrastructuring and Ecologising a New Global Hegemony?

LUCC's David Tyfield has co-edited (with Fabricio Rodriguez) a special issue of the International Quarterly for Asian Studies on the theme of China's infrastructure and ecological civilisation concept. Featuring contributions from other LUCC scholars, the collection tackles broad topics including China's climate governance, ecological civilisation, the Belt and Road, island building, lunar exploration and cyberspace.

Read the special issue at: https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/iqas/issue/view/1116

(Un)making occupational gender segregation: Intergenerational reproduction of gender-(a)typical occupational aspirations in China

Working with Ryan Coulter, LUCC Fellow Professor Yang Hu published a new paper in Gender, Work and Organization that comprehensively examines how occupational gender segregation is (re)produced across generations. Hu and his co-author propose & test the new theory of "gender boundary-setting", distinguishing direct occupational imitation from indirect gender learning. Recognizing the two-way traffic of children's social learning and parents' expectations, Hu and Coulter disentangle whether children's social learning is "dictated" by their parents' directive (Answer: No)

Read the full paper at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.12957 and see Yang's Twitter thread on it at:

https://twitter.com/dr_yanghu/status/1618897031464112129

Shaping AI’s future? China in Global AI Governance

Journal of Contemporary China, by Jinghan Zeng with co-author Jing Cheng. The article argues that China’s search for AI leadership is driven by not only domestic regulatory needs but also the desire to gain norm and agenda setting power. China’s leadership ambition in global AI governance lies in the wider context of its aspiration to shift from a norm-taker towards a norm-shaper, if not maker. Despite considerable efforts taken so far, however, this article suggests that China is facing enormous challenges to realize its leadership ambition.

Get the full article at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10670564.2022.2107391

Chinese views of the world at the time of the Russia-Ukraine war

An international group of researchers led by Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic, including LUCC’s Andrew Chubb, conducted an online survey of more than 3 000 Chinese respondents in March 2022. Published in cooperation with the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), the report presents the results, especially in relation to Chinese attitudes towards Russia, the US, and international affairs. The findings show that the Chinese public largely supports Russia in its war in Ukraine, while views about the US have significantly worsened.

Open-access download at: https://ceias.eu/chinese-views-of-the-world-at-the-time-of-the-russia-ukraine-war

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

LUCC's first co-published report, in partnership with the Lau China Institute at King’s College London, is titled Rights Protection: How the UK Should Respond to China’s Overseas Influence. Released in June 2022, the report by Andrew Chubb highlights practical steps for policymakers and universities to address challenges from the confluence of new technologies and the PRC’s authoritarian turn in recent years, while maintaining beneficial engagement with China.

The report is available open-access at: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lci/assets/ksspplcipolicyno.2-2022-forweb.pdf

Outreach & Engagement

LUCC Doctoral Fellows Najla Al Zarooni and Xue Bai both presented papers in the inaugural Politics, Philosophy and Religion Postgraduate Research Conference (pictured above). Najla presented her work on China’s Involvement in the Gulf: Between Rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, while Xue presented on Exploring Motivations for Buycott Participation in Contemporary China: A Study of the Buycott of Erke.

China Expert Fellow Jinghan Zeng published a widely-read op-ed in Nikkei Asia on October 31, titled “Any certainties about where Xi will lead China should be questioned.” Prof. Zeng also appeared in live interviews with Alhurra, Asharq News, and Al Jazeera Arabic among many other outlets in 2022.

Fellow and Head of Department of Languages and Cultures Dr. Derek Hird presented on Cosmopolitan Chinese Masculinities and the Confucian Sublime at SOAS University of London on May 9.

LUCC Acting Director Andrew Chubb was on the BBC News channel in November discussing China’s unfolding protest movements. A Radio 5 Live Breakfast broadcast with Chubb discussing the summit between Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden can also be heard at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001f518 (from 2:07 onwards).

Culture & Community

Lancaster University Confucius Institute is running a 10-week Mandarin courses for staff, students and members of public. The course is open to beginner and advanced level learners to learn and practice Chinese language, and will run until the final week of term (w/c March 20).

For more information please visit https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/confucius-institute/events/extra-curricular-language-classes or contact ci@lancaster.ac.uk