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Winter Quarter 2023

Dear UC San Diego,


We are pleased to welcome all of you back to campus for the winter quarter. The fall quarter brought with it the return of students and many in-person public events, and we were pleased to see students in the lecture halls with questions for our speakers. 

 

We worked on quite a few policy briefs in the fall, including a primer on the 20th Party Congress that brought together many faculty and experts on Chinese politics and the Chinese economy, a policy brief on Taiwan issued by the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy, and a report by center non-resident scholar Keith J. Hand on China’s evolving legal strategies in external relations. You can find all of our policy reports on our website. 

 

On the research front, we continued to field China from the Ground Up surveys of Chinese public opinion and employed many student researchers in ongoing projects at the China Data Lab and beyond.

 

Our cooperation with the Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China continued in the fall quarter. We hosted an academic conference in December that brought together scholars from across the UC system and beyond to discuss population changes in China and its social and political ramifications. Our regular series of research workshops also continues to host China experts from around the world as they share their in-progress work. Academic researchers interested in the Friday workshops are welcome to contact us via email so you can be placed on the weekly notification list. Interested scholars should save the date on Jan. 20 as China Data Lab researchers will present a lightning round panel collectively to showcase their latest data and data-driven work.  

 

This winter we will continue to offer compelling events on many aspects of Chinese society, politics and the U.S.-China relations. Our winter lecture series will kick off on Jan. 19 with a screening of “Beethoven in Beijing” and a conversation with the film’s director. Other speakers in the series include Susan Thornton giving this year’s Ellsworth Memorial Lecture and Guobin Yang speaking on the Wuhan lockdown at its third anniversary.


We welcome you to subscribe to our China 360° bulletin, and check out China Data Lab and the student-led China Focus blog. We look forward to seeing you on Zoom or in person!

 

With warm regards,


Susan Shirk, Chair, 21st Century China Center; and

Lei Guang, So Family Executive Director, 21st Century China Center

Featured News

New Scholarship 


Michael Davidson coauthored a study in Nature that quantified the cost savings of a globalized value chain for the solar industry. The U.S. alone saved $24 billion from a globalized solar supply chain. In a separate article in Science, Davidson and his coauthors urge more collaboration, not decoupling, with China on low carbon technologies.

Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, Marion So, Kwan So

Remembering Longtime UC San Diego Supporter Kwan So


In Memoriam: Kwan So, founding member and longtime supporter of the 21st Century China Center, passed away this November. We will always remember his unwavering support for the mission of the center and his exhortation for the center and GPS to continually strive for excellence.

Photo of flyer for Future Leaders Summer Program

2023 Future Leaders Summer Program


After a hiatus of three years, the center will resume the program aimed at high school students from the U.S., China and other countries interested in the role of China in global affairs, especially U.S.-China relations. This unique pre-college program is designed for young students to develop problem-solving and diplomacy skills critical to global affairs. The 2023 program will include four topics: climate change, clean energy, artificial intelligence and global pandemics. If you know someone whom you’d like to recommend to this program, ask them to fill out this interest form.

Upcoming Events

Beethoven in Beijing

A Film Screening with Jennifer Lin, moderated by Lei Liang

Jan. 19, 2023 at 3:30-6 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event 

This talk and movie screening by Jennifer Lin will explore the impact of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s historic 1973 China tour.

 

Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts in China

Jan. 26, 2023 at 5 p.m.

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

This talk by Jeremy Wallace from Cornell examines China’s single-minded approach to growth and whether they will change their focus on gross domestic product (GDP) alone.

 

Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair Lecture 

The Burden of Conservation: Water, Soil and History in Modern China

Feb. 2, 2023 at 4 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event 

Micah Muscolino, UC San Diego history professor and Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History, will discuss how conservation campaigns intensified social inequality in China before reform and opening.

 

Can We Decouple and Decarbonize?

Feb. 7, 2023 at 5 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

In this talk, Jonas Nahm from Johns Hopkins SAIS examines the causes and effects of clean energy’s global division of labor after attempts to decouple from China.

 

The Wuhan Lockdown

Feb. 16, 2023 at 5 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

This talk by Guobin Yang from University of Pennsylvania tells the dramatic story of the Wuhan lockdown in the voices of the city’s own people.

 

Divergent Trajectories of China’s Email-Order Brides

Feb. 23, 2023 at 5 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

This talk by Monica Liu from the University of St. Thomas examines how inequalities brought on by China’s transition shapes some women’s desires to seek out migration via marriage.

 

The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State

March 9, 2023 at 5 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

UC San Diego professor Tai Ming Cheung will speak on China's rise as a techno-security superpower and its implication for the global order.


The Robert F. Ellsworth Memorial Lecture 

How the West Should Meet the China Challenge

March 16, 2023 at 4 p.m. PST

Register: In-Person Event | Register: Zoom Webinar

Senior Fellow at Yale’s Paul Tsai China Center and former acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton will tackle the question of what we should do to manage the transition to a post-Cold War order with China. Is it too late for a good outcome? 

Profiles of China Scholars and Speakers

Tai Ming Cheung

Tai Ming Cheung is a professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy and director of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He is a longtime analyst of and leading expert on Chinese and East Asian defense and national security affairs, especially related to geoeconomics and geopolitics, technology and innovation. His new book “Innovate to Dominate” examines the convergence of national security, innovation and economic development in China as it pursues long-term strategies to reshape the world order. He will give a talk about his book on March 9.

Micah Muscolino

Micah Muscolino is a leading historian on the environmental history of modern China. He is a UC San Diego Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair in modern Chinese history. He has written books on the environmental history of China’s fishing industry and the ecological impact of World War II in China, as well as numerous articles on topics ranging from the maritime connections between China and Taiwan to the history of water and soil conservation in Northwest China. He will give the Paul G. Pickowicz Endowed Chair Lecture this year on Feb. 2. 

Susan A. Thornton

Susan A. Thornton is a retired senior U.S. diplomat with almost 30 years of experience with the U.S. State Department in Eurasia and East Asia. She is currently a senior fellow and research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale University Law School; director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She will give the Robert F. Ellsworth Memorial Lecture this year on March 16.

Guobin Yang

Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Center on Digital Culture and Society and serves as deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. He will give a talk about the Wuhan lockdown, the subject of his namesake book, on Feb. 16, around the third anniversary of the first lockdown in 2020.

Quick Links

Data visualizations on wide-ranging topics in Chinese politics and political economy are featured on our China Data Lab blog.


China Focus is an online magazine dedicated to providing depth and context for understanding China and U.S.-China relations. It is run by GPS students with the support of the center.


For students, faculty and others interested in new academic research, sign up for upcoming China Research Workshops organized jointly with the Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China.


The 21st Century China Center receives support from philanthropists, alumni, community members, foundations and institutional partners and welcomes tax-deductible donations to support our mission.

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21st Century China Center, School of Global Policy and Strategy

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