Reading greeting messages and watching videos from absent GCA Fellows and GCD 8 invited speakers (virtual contribution) 

Note: The speeches and presentation of certificates are included on another page as Part I. This is Part II of the Dinner Arrangements, which includes greeting messages, videos, and their transcriptions.

Chair: Professor Tony McEnery 托尼·麦肯尼教授 FAcSS FRSA FGCA and Chair of Global China Academy Council, Council Member of the Academy of Social Sciences, Distinguished Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University.

Messages:

• Congratulations on the opening of the 8th Global China Dialogue. The Dialogue is most urgent at the current stage of world history. — Professor KOMAI Hiroshi 駒井 洋教授 FGCA, a Japanese sociologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Tsukuba and Shigakukan University, Japan.
• Global China Academy is a very influent and prestigious international institution promoting a very fruitful and intense dialogue between social scientists from China and different countries. During the last ten years the number of academic events and publications by Global Century Press Journals are very high. As Life Fellow of the GCA, I am really honoured to participate to the scientific life of this beautiful institution. I hope we will more and more establish new cooperations in sociology, especially about what we called with my Chinese colleagues Post-Western theory to develop more dialogic and non-hegemonic social sciences, to open new academic spaces and produce hybridizations between located knowledge in China and in Europe. I would consider it is a big challenge for the future of social sciences. Happy Birthday to GCA, a great success and a very bright future! — Professor Laurence Roulleau-Berger 罗兰教授, Life Fellow of Global China Academy, Emeritus Research Director at National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR)

Watching videos from absent GCA Fellows and the 8th GCD potential speakers

• Professor XIE Lizhong 谢立中教授, Founding Fellow and Chinese President of Global China Academy, Distinguished Chair Professor and former head of Department of Sociology of Peking University, China

Good evening, everyone: I’m delighted to extend my congratulations on the successful conclusion of the 8th Global China Dialogue. This year also marks a significant milestone—the 10th anniversary of the Global China Academy’s establishment.

Congratulations to all involved in this remarkable journey. Over the past decade, thanks to your concern, support, and active participation, the Global China Academy has successfully organized many activities. Additionally, Global Century Press has published a wide range of uncensored works on China, significantly contributing to the promotion of scholarly exchange in China studies worldwide. Looking ahead, I sincerely hope the Global China Academy will continue to receive your unwavering support, enabling it to grow and excel even further.

• Professor Carsten Herrmann-Pillath 何梦笔教授, Founding Fellow and Vice-President of Global China Academy (European engagement), Permanent Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Erfurt University, Germany

Ten years at Global China Academy, my heartfelt congratulations. What a decade: Trumpism, COVID-19, all these geopolitical tensions rising and creating an increasing distance between China and the so-called West. I think this is really a worrying trend, and an institution like the Global China Academy has a task to contribute to reversing this trend.

When I was a student, there was a China scholar who was famous, or I would say even infamous, for his neologism when dealing with China. One of his favorite neologisms was ‘impansionism.’ He argued that China was never, and will never be, a political power that pursues expansion in global terms like in the past, and some would say even today. Western countries define ‘impansionism’ as being just attractive to the world, just attracting people, capital, all that without doing anything. That’s deep, as you know, in the Taoist principle, the principle of non-action, Wu Wei. And I’m afraid that in the past decade, somehow, China also lost part of this wisdom.

And I strongly believe, and that’s what I’ve experienced in my career of almost 40 years now dealing with China, that China is incredibly attractive and has always been incredibly attractive. That was also the topic in my video message last year. An institution like the Global China Academy can contribute exactly to this, making China attractive to the world. This does not mean to embellish China, but simply opening up, telling the truth, and also entering critical discourse. Actually, to a large degree, what is often called liberal values is the key to openness. And also, I think a key to non-action. China does not need to be afraid of any flies entering an open window. That’s what Mr. Weggel argued. It is true, about thousands of years of history of Chinese civilization. I wish Global China Academy the best for the next decade, that it will contribute to communicating Chinese thinking, Chinese debates, Chinese ideas to the world, and entering a multilateral intellectual dialogue. Thank you.

• Professor Shigeto Sonoda 園田茂人教授, Founding Fellow and Vice-President of Global China Academy (Asian engagement), Professor of comparative sociology and Asian studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo, Japan

Hello, my name is Sonoda Shigeto, a Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo. Congratulations on the 10th anniversary of the Global China Academy. As you know, a variety of opinion polls reveal that people’s ideas and evaluations regarding the rise of China differ significantly from one country to another, even among Asian countries. Thus, I think it’s quite necessary for intellectuals to promote dialogue, especially intellectual dialogues between people in China and those in the global community. I hope that the Global China Academy will continue promoting these intellectual dialogues. Thank you.

• Professor BING Zheng 邴正教授, Life Fellow of Global China Academy, former Executive Vice-President of Jilin University；former Vice-President of the Chinese Sociological Association, China.

On this joyous occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Global China Academy, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks and sincere congratulations to the Global China Academy and Professor Chang Xiangqun.

Since its establishment, the Global China Academy has actively organized scholars from China and the UK, strengthening academic and cultural exchanges and promoting academic communication and publication activities. It has played a very important role in organizing academic events and connecting scholars, building a bridge between Chinese and British scholars. Through this bridge, many Chinese and British scholars have enhanced their understanding, exchanged academic ideas, tightened their connections, and fostered friendships through mutual exchanges and visits.

Therefore, I wholeheartedly wish the Global China Academy to attract more talented individuals, gather more academic strength, jointly promote Sino-British friendship, and advance academic research around globalization, leading to more academic exchanges and scholarly achievements.

• Professor Prasenjit Duara 杜赞奇教授, Life Fellow of Global China Academy, Distinguished Professor of East Asian Studies, Duke University, USA

Good day, everybody. My name is Prasenjit Duara, and my Chinese name is DU Zanqi. I am the Oscar Tang Professor at Duke University. I was a student of China and global history. As a Fellow of the Global China Academy, I’m delighted to congratulate the Academy on conducting the 8th Global China Dialogue. In a period of increasing tensions around the world, which is making life so difficult for many millions of people, it is, I believe, imperative that as scholars, we maintain open dialogue in various areas of life between the major powers.

As someone originally from India, I also believe China and India should open more lines of dialogue and exchange. We need to create a global civil society that is invested in dialogue for peace. And now, have a productive conference and my best wishes to all of you. Goodbye now.

• Professor Peter van der Veer 彼得·范德维尔教授, Life Fellow of Global China Academy, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Study of Religious Diversity at the Max Planck Institute, Germany.

Dear colleagues at the Global China Academy, I’m terribly sorry I cannot be present at the event today, as I’m currently in China serving as a visiting faculty member at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. I’m very pleased to be back in China. I have not been here for more than three years, and it’s really important to reestablish contacts after the Covid period, especially when academic exchange has become threatened. I believe that the Global China Academy can play an important role in this effort of reestablishing contact. I wish you much success.

• Professor GU Yueguo 顾曰国教授, Life Fellow of Global China Academy, Emeritus Research Professor of Linguistics in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Former Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China.

Hello there, I’m Gu Yueguo, an absent fellow greeting everybody from Beijing, PRC, because I have immersed myself in two national projects on gerontic discourse which I must complete. I miss everybody, and the 10th GCA anniversary dinner in particular. Have a good time in London.

• Professor HOU Shiyuan 郝时远教授, Fellow of Global China Academy (2023), Academician and former Associate President and former Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Hello to all the experts, I am Hao Shuyuan from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt congratulations on the 10th anniversary of the Global China Academy’s series of important academic achievements. At the same time, I am also very pleased to have received academic honors. I would like to specially thank Professor Xiangqun Chang and the experts who recommended me to join the academic team of the Global China Academy.

Here, I can only simply express a wish and convey my own desire. That is to say, receiving academic honours is in fact also taking on an academic responsibility. In the future, I am willing to engage in academic exchanges and cooperation with all my colleagues at the Global China Academy and jointly make our own efforts to fulfill this academic responsibility. Thank you all.

Watching videos from the 8th GCD invited speakers (virtual contribution) 

• Professor Lawrence Gostin 劳伦斯·戈斯汀教授, Invited speaker  of GCD 8; Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law, Georgetown University

Hi, I’m Larry Goston, and I’m the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Global Health Law here at Georgetown University. I’m sorry I can’t be with you at the Global China Dialogue. I’ve been very deeply involved in global health governance, and during the pandemic, the unthinkable happened. The United States, in a dispute with China, put the WHO in the middle of a geostrategic squabble and withdrew from the World Health Organization. President Biden reversed that on his first day in office, but it shows the importance of robust US-China dialogue on global health governance. Right now in Geneva, there are two transformational negotiations going on: one for the reform of the International Health Regulations and another for a pandemic treaty. It’s critically important that we grasp this opportunity for fundamental reform in global health governance throughout the world to make our world safer, fairer, more equitable, and if we fail to do that after all of the suffering of COVID-19, we will have lost that opportunity for a generation. So, my message to all of you is that we need to fight for robust global reforms with strong alliances north and south, east and west, and to establish transformational new norms for global health and global health equity in the coming year. I send you my very best wishes and wish that I could be with you. I hope next year I can.

• Professor Andrew Bastawrous 安德鲁·巴斯塔罗斯教授 OBE, Invited speaker  of GCD 8; International Centre for Eye Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Co-Founder & CEO – Peek Vision

About the age of 12, I wasn’t doing great at school, and for a long time, I didn’t realize that the reason I was struggling was that I couldn’t see. When I did go and get an eye test, with the trial lenses on, I just remember being totally blown away by how this world, that had been soft, suddenly came into really sharp, vivid focus. In my field, in eye care, there’s still a massive gap. At least a billion people lack access to the basic eye services they need and are vision impaired as a consequence. Most of them just need a pair of glasses or a cataract operation, so the issue is not about delivering new innovations anymore; it’s about innovating the delivery of existing solutions. There’s a problem there, and if you are going to overcome it, it’s about either moving services closer to the people or providing a way that people can move to the services, and that, for me, is the core of our work. When I received the Rolex Award in 2016, we had completed a program in schools with our partners in Kenya, where around 20,000 children had been screened, and those who required treatment had received it. We’d built one model that we felt was scalable. The Rolex Award had several impacts, both on me personally and on my organization. One of the biggest changes in the last couple of years has been that we’ve moved away from hardware-focused work, such as looking at images at the back of the eye, and really focused on identifying those individuals who are currently invisible to ensure that they reach the service that can meet their need, and then tracking whether that service has worked for them.

We’ve gone beyond East Africa. We’ve started expanding into Southeast Asia, and one of the most exciting programs at the moment is in Pakistan. In total, what’s the population that is now able to access the services? We’ve got incredible partners there, and they’ve managed to connect more than 60 different health centres, which are serving a population of more than 400,000 people. That’s just the start. We’ve chosen difficult places to work, but within that, we are choosing the populations in those countries who have the least ability to access or pay for services, so if you get the ingredients right, the potential for change is actually even bigger. Fantastic, so we’re talking about 30 million people here that we could be reaching? That’s hugely exciting. If we just maintain what we are doing now, the numbers of people losing sight are going to triple over the next 30 years, so my ambition is not so much about numbers but about turning the tide. Can we hit that tipping point where, rather than the numbers going up, we can start to bring them down? There isn’t an end to this journey; it’s an infinite game.

Professor Martin Albrow and Dr Frances Wood expressed their appreciation to Professor Xiangqun Chang for her hard work in making the 8th Global China Dialogue and the 10th Anniversary of the Global China Academy a success.

The dinner marked the conclusion of the 8th Global China Dialogue forum and associated events.

Selected Feedback from a Public Participant

I wish to send my most heartfelt thank you to Professor Chang for the wonderful and most successful event yesterday. Although my expertise is in family law and not the health sector, I felt I have benefited so much by attending the event, listening to all the talks and the research and insight from the various speakers. They were all fantastic and their hard work behind the research is outstanding and so much appreciated.
I especially would like to thank Professor Chang for inviting my friend Qing Miao and me to the dinner at the House of Lords. It was not planned by us, but we were both delighted and felt privileged to have been there. The presentation of the certificates and the various speakers sending their messages and greetings from the UK and abroad were extremely moving and uplifting. It was a real encouragement that the good work which has been started must continue and the gain will in time benefit us all.
I wish the GCA every success in all you do and once again thank you so much for the opportunity to be included in the attendance yesterday.

— Brenda Wong Robinson（Associate at Buckles Solicitors LLP）

The 8th Organizing Committee of the Global China Dialogue offers sincere thanks to 

• Organisers, supporters and sponsors of the GCD VIII
• Specially to Experts and scholars for chairing all the sessions and sharing their wonderful thoughts and insights and
• All staff and volunteers of the 8th Preparatory Group of the GCD VIII

See you at the 9th Global China Dialogue: Global Governance for AI, on the 6th December 2024.

Click HERE to return to GCD VIII page