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Global China Academy’s Activities in June 2024
We typically update the News and Blog section on a monthly basis. Due to the differing nature of activities and events, this page has categorized them into two types based on the missions of the Global China Academy. Within each category, the items are listed in reverse chronological order. However, our own events will always be placed at the top.
Academic mission
Following the 1st China-Focus Research Forum held on May 11th, 2023 (click here to find related news and photos), at SOAS, University of London, organized jointly by the student societies with support from the language teaching staff of SOAS, LSE, and King’s College London, the 2nd China-Focus Research Forum was held at the Global China Academy Centre both offline and online on June 8th, 2024.
Programme
Date and Time: 8th June 2024, 1-5 pm BST
Location: Global China Academy
Chair: Zhonghan Lin, PhD candidate in the School of Education, Communication & Society at King’s College London
1:00 – 1:10 pm Opening speech & warming up
1:10 – 1:35 pm
‘The Future of China’s Global Influence: A Theoretical Analysis of Peaceful and Conflictual Trajectories’
by Subham Kumar Kanu, The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
1:35 – 2:00 pm
‘The Baby-Eating Barbarians: Imagining and Constructing Chinese Images of Europeans in Late Ming and Early Qing Period’
by CHAN Pui To, Jack, The University of Hong Kong
2:00 – 2:25 pm
‘Cultural Conflict, Agency, and Muslim Hui Women’s Trajectories in Chinese State-Run Education’
by Gao Beibei, King’s College London
2:25 – 2:35 pm Special addresses:
- Professor Xiangqun Chang, President of the Global China Academy (GCA)
- Associate Professor XU Haiyan, Nanchang University; Editor of Journal of Chinese for Social Sciences (JCSS)
2:35 – 3:00 pm Break
3:00 – 3:25 pm
‘Geopolitics of Technology and China’s Ascendancy in Militarizing AI and its Implication in the Indo-Pacific: A Comparative Study of India-China in the Field of Militarization of AI’
by Agniva Ray, Jadavpur University, India
3:30 – 3:55 pm
‘Navigating the Waves: China’s Lawfare in Maritime Domain’
by Vibha Ghaty Sreesh, Rashtriya Raksha University, India
3:55 – 4:20 pm Break
4:20 – 4:45 pm
‘China’s Approach to Dispute Resolution: Are the International Commercial Courts of China (CICC) Part of China’s ‘Grand Strategy’ to Challenge the Current Structure of International Arbitration Regulations and Institutions?’
by Maria Anna Sampson, King’s College London
4:45 – 5:00 pm Closing remarks
by Dr. Hongfen Zhou, Team Leader for East Asian and South Asian Languages at the Language Centre, King’s College London
Related photos
The offline venue was at the Global China Academy Centre. From left to right: Dr. Lianyi Song (SOAS), Dr. Jing Chu (KCL), Dr. Hongfeng Zhou (KCL), Zhonghan Lin (Chair, KCL), Associate Professor Xu Haiyan (Nanchang University, China), Dr. Lijing Shi (LSE), and Professor Xiangqun Chang.
Some presenters. From left to right: Subham Kumar Kanu, CHAN Jack Pui To, Gao Beibei, Agniva Ray, Vibha Ghaty Sreesh, Maria Anna Sampson, Chunjin Li.
Selected presentations. The significant features of this Forum are the global participation including three from India and broader themes compared to the 1st Forum, where the participants were primarily based in London and from SOAS.
Tea break: Participants enjoyed Zongzi dumplings as June 10th, 2024, closed to the Dragon Boat Festival.
The participants were primarily the Editorial Board members of JCSS. They discussed issues related to the journal.
After the forum, participants visited Brocket Hall and enjoyed a walk and dinner there.
Social mission
21st June, Professor Chang Xiangqun, President of the Global China Academy, and Ms YU Li, Project Manager, were invited to attend the 6th Anniversary Champagne Reception and the 20th Anniversary Charity Antique Auction of Mother’s Bridge of Love (MBL) hosted by the Chinese Collectors Club (UK). The event took place at the Whisky Club, 1A Bond Street. After a splendid pipa solo performance by the renowned artist CHENG Yu, the charity auction was hosted by Mr. Zhang Pu, Chairman of the Chinese Collectors Club (UK). All proceeds, amounting to £13,000, were donated to Mother’s Bridge of Love to express gratefulness to the MBL for funding the establishment of 28 children’s libraries in rural and urban areas of China and providing cultural consultations and support for families in 27 countries that have adopted Chinese orphans, helping Chinese orphans.
Auction Catalog.
Top left: Xiangqun Chang and Yu Li with Xinran (middle), the founder of MBL. She was one of the panelists at the 1st Global China Dialogue in 2014. Top right: Xiangqun Chang with Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans (1991), Mao: The Unknown Story (2005), and Empress Dowager Cixi (2013). Bottom left: Pu Zhang hosted the auction. Bottom right: Xiangqun Chang met Fellows of The Sociological Review, Dr. William Zhengdong Hu and his wife, who were volunteers there.
On 9th June, with the help of Mr. Kai Liang, Ambassador of Hampton Court Golf Club and Event Officer of GCA, we organized 9 pairs teams to participate in the Mill Hill Mixed Open. Some of them won 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th places, as well as the longest drive. After dinner and prize giving, a Champagne Reception was held at the GCA Centre. The successful event served multiple purposes: mixing Chinese and non-Chinese players, celebrating Tao Liu’s Albatross (three strokes under par on a single hole), and the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival.
Mill Hill Mixed Open and its dinner and prize giving.
Left: Kai Liang hosted the Champagne Reception and Tao Liu opened a bottle of Champagne. Right: different varieties of Zongzi dumplings.
Everyone enjoyed the drinks, soft fruit and snacks.
Cheers to Tao Liu and to our gathering!
The event lasted until midnight. It was a wonderful celebration of camaraderie and cultural exchange. We look forward to more successful events in the future, bringing together diverse communities in celebration and fellowship.
Global China Academy Board of Trustees’s Chair Participates in the 11th WWUPF in Zhengzhou, China, May 25-29, 2024
Maria Jaschok 12 June 2024
On Attending
The 11th World Women University Presidents Forum (WWUPF) 2024,
held in Zhengzhou, Henan, May 25th–29th.
What better way for this new chair of the GCA Board of Trustees to introduce herself, albeit in a rather brief and generally worded presentation, than by means of an academic, which is also a most personal, gendered lens through which I tend to observe, filter, and interpret the complex and divergent realities around me. I have just returned from China where one of my tasks was participation in the 11th World Women University Presidents Forum (WWUPF). An initiative of the Communication University of China (CUC), the WWUPF was launched in August 2001. Its aim is ‘to pool the strength of women university presidents all over the world and to create an international platform for them to communicate and collaborate, and to share new ideas and thoughts in the fields of higher education development and women leadership promotion’ (Brochure, Communications University of China/Huanghe S&T University, 2024).
In addition to ten fora in China, eleven sub-fora have been held around the world. In just over ten years of internationally oriented female-gendered academic discourses, by now with a notable track-record of intellectual and transformative traction, the WWUPF has accumulated considerable credibility. The annual fora clearly benefit from cross/multi-disciplinary and intersectional expertise, and the quality of discourses around significant, topical core themes and critical policy fault lines relevant to gender and Higher Education have garnered close attention from international institutions, as evidenced by the annual participation of representatives from UN agencies and various multilateral organizations.
The 2024 Forum took place in Zhengzhou, Henan, and was dedicated to the theme of ‘Multicultural Backgrounds and Common Development. The Responsibility of Higher Education Leadership.’ Senior UN and UNCESCO leaders sent messages of support which were live-streamed as part of a festive and wide-ranging commencement ceremony which heralded a four-day event of keynote speeches, presentations, and discussions. Artistic performances, exhibitions, and visits to museums and historic sites in Henan rounded off informative cultural excursions, making evident once more the significance of the notion of 中原 zhongyuan culture in relation to the current Chinese government focus on national cultural confidence 文化自信 wenhua zixin.
I participated in a panel organized around issues of ‘Openness of Higher Education and Continuity of Civilization’ with a paper on “Studying Elsewhere – cultures of pedagogy, traditions of learning, and fault lines of communication.” The images accompanying this text may help convey the atmosphere of an event that brought together academic, administrative, and political leaders for serious purposes, including many outstanding women leaders of diverse higher education institutions from around the globe. However, most notable was the frequently reiterated pride expressed by Forum participants from such a diversity of national, ethnic, political, and academic backgrounds, a shared pride in having created a meaningful consensus on the importance of an initiative that continues to make a difference despite remarkable global and local challenges.
The transformative powers of female education and its relevance to furthering the SDGs adopted by the UN in 2015 are near-universally shared principles, driving facilitation of enduring institutions for gender justice. Yet such principles are also heavily contested, in certain contexts negated as detrimental to societal development. The WWUPF provides ongoing campaigns for female education at the highest level with solid evidence of the positive impact of capable female leadership in senior positions as it continues to challenge the ongoing underrepresentation of authoritative female voices. The founding initiative for these timely fora, and now their increasingly impactful linkages with international academic institutions and networks, originated from Professor Liu Jinan, then the female president of CUC, making the global mission of the WWUPF all the more remarkable and poignant.
Lastly, but by no means least, for me the most profound and moving experience, both at a personal and autobiographical level, was my return, after an absence of five years, to a part of China with which I had been intensely involved for well over twenty years of research and fieldwork. It was gratifying to have the opportunity once again to listen, interact, learn, observe, and renew contact with old friends and colleagues, whose friendship, knowledge, and incredible generosity are inextricably linked with my understanding of Chinese society.
Photos sources: https://www.hhstu.edu.cn/info/1052/22194.htm, https://news.xmu.edu.cn/info/1003/471011.htm; text provided by the participant.
