Archive

Prof. Dr. LEI Yi 雷颐

Professor of Late Qing and Modern Chinese History, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS)

Prof. Dr. LEI Yi is a historian of late-Qing and modern China. He is a native of Changsha (Hunan) and joined the Institute of Modern History (CASS) in 1985, where he pursues his research into modern Chinese intellectual history. He uses analyses of late-Qing’s administrative reforms to highlight the paradigm shift from revolution to modernization during the “Reform and Opening period” since 1978.

He publishes extensively on late Qing history and frequently writes essays and comments on current events in the press, in blogs and on Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter). Southern People Weekly nominated him for the “2011 List of China’s Most Interesting People”.

Publications

•  A Delayed Modernisation 被延误的现代化 (Daxiang Publishing House, 2002)
• Li Hongzhang and the Last Four Decades of the Qing Dynasty 李鸿章与晚清四十年, subtitled ‘an old bureaucrat and an empire’ 一个老官僚与一个帝国 (Shanxi People’s Publishing House, 2008)
• ‘Reflections of a Revolutionary’ 一位革命者的反思, on Li Xin 李新, Tencent History, 腾讯历史 30 July 2010.
• ‘The Qing Court Manufactured Revolutionaries‘ 清政府恰事革命党的制造厂,Southern Metropolitan Daily 南方都市报, 12 May 2011.
• ‘They Manufactured Revolution in the Xinhai Year’ 辛亥革命是被逼出来的, Global Times 环球时报, 11 October 2011.

Translations

• Danny Wynn Ye Kwok’s Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900-1950 (1965);
• Paul A. Cohen’s Between Tradition and Modernity: Wang T’ao and Reform in late Ch’ing China (1974)
• Min-chih Chou’s Hu Shih and Intellectual Choice in Modern China (1984).

Prof. Dr. LI Anshan 李安山

Director of Institute of Afro-Asian Studies and Center for African Studies, School of International Studies, Peking University
Vice President, Chinese Society of African Historical Studies
Vice President, Chinese Association of African Studies

Prof. Dr. LI has obtained his PhD from Toronto University and is currently a professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University. His research focusses on Sino-African relations, African studies and the history of Chinese Overseas in Africa.

Publications

• A History of Chinese Overseas in Africa (Beijing, 2000)
• British Rule and Rural Protest in Southern Ghana (New York, 2002)
• Studies on African Nationalism (Beijing, 2004)
• Social History of Chinese Overseas in Africa: Selected Documents, 1800- 2005 (Hong Kong, 2006)
• Ancient Kingdoms in Africa (2011)

Prof. Dr. LU Yunfeng 卢云峰

Associate Professor of Sociology, Center for the Study of Chinese Religion and Society, Peking University

LU Yunfeng is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of Center for the Study of Chinese Religion and Society at Peking University. Dr. LU’s current work is focused on four areas: (a) the governance of religion in China, (b) new religious movements in contemporary China, (c) the role of religion in public sphere, (d) Urbanization and religion.

Dr. LU is a graduate in sociology of Nanjing University (B. A., 1998, M. Phil. 2001) and City University of Hong Kong (Ph.D, 2005). He also serves as a non-resident research fellow of Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion where he spent two years (2005,2006) as a post-doc researcher.

Publications

• The Transformation of Yiguan Dao in Taiwan: Adapting to a Changing Religious Economy, Lexington Books, 2008.
• His articles have appeared in The Sociological Quarterly, Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sciences in China

Prof. Dr. PAN Wei 潘维

Director, Center for Chinese & Global Affairs, School of International Studies, Peking University

Prof. PAN is professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University and the Director of Center for Chinese & Global Affairs at SISS. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in international politics from Peking University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley (1996). From 1985 to 1995 he worked as a Research Assistant at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. He often is perceived as a stern Nationalist, but he is a supporter of the notion that the US needs China’s co-operation, but that China was to “create a new political civilization different from that of the West”.

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Prof. Dr. PANG Zhongying 庞中英

Director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing

Dr. PANG Zhongying is a Professor of International Relations and the founding Director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance at School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. His current research interests are major powers in global governance, global concert of powers, the reform of existing international governance, comparative regional governance among world’s regions, and theory and practice of diplomacy.

Pang graduated from China’s Nankai University with B.A. in economics, UK’s University of Warwick with MA in Politics and International Studies, and China’s Peking University with Ph.D. in International Relations. He served in both the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS) and the Chinese Embassy in Indonesia. He was a professor of International Relations and the founding Director of Global Studies Institute at Nankai University in Tianjin, China.

Publications

• “China’s changing attitude to International Peacekeeping” (2005)
• Global Governance: Views from China (ed., 2006)
• “Strengthening China-West Cooperation” (2008)
• “China’s Non-intervention Question” (2009)
• “Global Governance and the World Order” (2012)

Prof. Dr. Erik Ringmar 林瑞谷

Zhi Yuan Chair Professor of International Relations, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Prof. Ringmar, a Swedish academic, is the Zhi Yuan chair professor of international relations at Shanghai Jiaotong University. He graduated with a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Yale University in 1993. Professor Ringmar’s writings cover international relations theory, history, and cultural and economic sociology. Ringmar’s acadmic writings have been translated into Chinese, Korean, and German. In addition, Ringmar has published journalistic pieces in the Huffington Post, Times Higher Education Supplement, and Dagens Nyheter.

Prof. Dr. TU Weiming 杜维明

Dean and Director, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IHAS), Peking University
Former Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute

Prof. TU Weiming is engaged in the re-appreciation of traditional values and thinking in contemporary China, particularly Confucianism. He – and many other intellectuals who can be called “New Confucianists” – deem this necessary to remedy the moral and ideological void in Mainland China left after the uprooting of traditional values during the 20th century and the more recent decline of Communist idealism. He aims to reestablish the connected cultural foundation of the Chinese World, which he describes as the three “universes” of “Cultural China”. Prof. Tu sees an intellectual imbalance caused by the supremacy of Western enlightenment thinking and discusses Confucian humanism as a complement to it.

Born in Kunming, Yunnan Province, Prof. Tu received his B.A. in Chinese Studies fro Tunghai University, Taiwan (1961) followed by Harvard University where he received his M.A. in Regional Studies of East Asia (1963) and Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages (1968). From 1966 to 1967 Prof. Tu was a Lecturer in the Humanities at Tunghai University and from 1968 to 1971 Assistant Professor in East Asian Studies at Princeton University. From 1971 until 1981 he successively was Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and then Professor of History at UC Berkeley. In 1981 he returned to Harvard to become Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy. From 1990 until 1991 he was Director of the Institute of Culture and Communication at the East-West Center in Hawaii. Between 1996 and 2010 Prof. Tu was appointed Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. In 1999 he was honored as the Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confucian Studies, a post he held until 2010. This was the first time that a professorship was named “Confucian Studies” in the English-speaking world.

Publications

• (1989). Confucianism in historical perspective. Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies.
• (1993). Way, learning, and politics: Essays on the Confucian intellectual. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
•  (1994). The living tree: The changing meaning of being Chinese today. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• co-edited with Tucker, Mary Evelyn. (2003/2004). Confucian spirituality (Vols. 1-2). New York: Crossroad.
• co-edited with Yao, Xinzhong. (2010). Confucian studies (Vols. 1-4). London: Routledge.
• (2010). The Global Significance of Concrete Humanity: Essays on the Confucian Discourse in Cultural China. New Dehli: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
• (2001). “The Ecological Turn in New Confucian Humanism: Implications for China and the World”. In Daedalus – Journal of the American Arts and Sciences, Vol. 130, No. 4. pp. 243-64.
• (2001). “The Global Significance of Local Knowledge: A New Perspective on Confucian Humanism”. In Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 222-227.
• (2005). “Cultural China: the periphery as the center”. In Daedalus – Journal of the American Arts and Sciences, Vol. 134, No. 4, pp. 145-167.
• (1998) “Renwen jingshen yu quanqiu lunli 人文精神与全球伦理” [Humanist spirit and global ethics], in Zhongguo daxue renwen qisi lu [Records of Chinese universities humanities open thoughts], Vol. 2, Wuhan: Huazhong Ligong Daxue Press, 1998. 

Prof. Dr. WANG Suolao 王锁劳

Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Peking University
Associate Professor of Sociology, Center for the Study of Chinese Religion and Society, Peking University

WANG Suolao is an Associate Professor in the School of International Studies, Peking University of China. He received a B.A. in History from Northwestern University in 1985, a M.A. in Afro-Asian History from Peking University in 1989 and a Ph.D. in International Politics from Peking University in 2000. He has been a faculty member of Peking University since 1989, and studied in Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Dar El-Ulum in Cairo University of Egypt, 1992-1994. He also did research works as visiting scholars in Department of Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies, Faculty of the Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2001-2002; and in Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University of the Netherlands, 2007-2008. Currently he is an executive member of China’s Association for Middle Eastern Studies, and member of China’s Association for Afro-Asian Studies.

Publications

• “Analysis of Egyptian Nationalism”
• “The impact of 9/11 events on the Middle East peace process”
• “Is Muslim the Provocateur of Wars in the Contemporary World?”
• “The Recent Lebanon-Israeli War and America’s Idea of ‘a New Middle East’”
• “Egypt’s Unique Position and its Effective Role in Sino-African Cooperation”

Kate Westgarth

China Coordination Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK

Kate Westgarth is a British researcher and career diplomat. She has spent over a decade in China. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Academy of Marxism, under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Her research interests are socialism with Chinese characteristics, elite Chinese leadership politics, Chinese foreign policy and Contemporary Chinese Politics, Elite Leadership.

Publications

• “No Talking Shops?” in Beijing Review, March 15, 2010 NO. 11 (link)
• “Painful Memory”, in Beijing Review, Jan 1, 2010
• “Pajama Headaches”, in 北京周报, Jan 1, 2010
• “Steady As She Goes”, in Beijing Review, Jan 1, 2010
• “Losses and Gains”, in Beijing Review, Jan 1, 2010

Prof. XIE Tao 谢韬

Professor of Political Science, American Studies Center, Beijing Foreign Studies

XIE Tao is a full professor of political science at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He holds a PhD in political science from Northwestern University (2007). His research interests include U.S. Congress, public opinion, U.S.-China relations, and Chinese foreign policy. He is the author of U.S.-China Relations: China Policy on Capitol Hill (Routledge 2008), and co-author of Living with the Dragon: How the American Public Views the Rise of China (Columbia University Press 2010). He has also published dozens of articles in Chinese and English journals. He is a frequent guest at BBC World News TV, China Radio International, and writes regular columns on American politics and international affairs for a Chinese newspaper, Economic Observer.

Prof. Dr. YAN Xuetong 阎学通

Dean, Institute of Modern International Relations, Tsinghua University
Vice Chairman, China Association of International Relations Studies
Vice Chairman, China Association of American Studies

Prof. YAN is the dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and the chief editor of the Chinese Journal of International Politics. He is also a vice chairman of the China Association of International Relations Studies and a vice chairman of the China Association of American Studies. Prof. YAN received his Ph.D of political science from University of California, Berkeley in 1992, his MA of international relations from the Institute of International Relations in 1986, and his BA in English from Heilongjiang University in 1982. He served as research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary International Relations during 1982-1984 and 1992-2000. YAN Xuetong has published more than one hundred of papers and articles on international relations. His analysis of China’s national interests won a 1998 China Book Price, and his Practical Methods of International Studies was authorized as textbook by the Chinese Education Ministry in 2006.

Prof. Dr. ZHANG Jian 张健

Associate Professor, School of Government, Peking University

Prof. ZHANG’s research interests include Comparative Politics, Chinese Politics, ethnic minority issues in China, identity politics, political participation and state/nation building in the developing world. He teaches Chinese politics, American politics, ethnic issues and an introduction to comparative politics at Peking University. He received his BA from Peking University (1997) and his Ph.D.from Columbia University (2007).

Publications

• “Structure, Rational Choice and the Political Participation of African Americans”, Beijing: National Interest, Vol. 6, Aug. 2011
• “Which Revolution? How to Bid Farewell?”, Beijing: Beijing Cultural Review, No. 17, June, 2011
• “Liberal Democracy and National Identity”, Hong Kong: Twenty-First Century Bimonthly, No. 122, Dec. 2010
• “The Xinjiang Issue: Ethnic Conflicts or Separatism”, Hong Kong: Twenty-First Century Bimonthly, No. 117, Feb. 2010
• “Russia: A Failing State?”, Beijing: National Interest, Vol. 3, Sept. 2010
• “Students and the CCP: the Merger of Nationalism and Communism”, Guangzhou: Politics Review of Sun Yat-sen University, Vol.4, Jan. 2010
• “Culture Diversity and Ethnic Homogenization”, Beijing: Beijing Cultural Review, No. 8, Dec., 2009

March 26, 2013, Bridge Café (Wudaokou)

Speaker: Prof. Dr. HUANG Yingying 黄盈盈, Department of Sociology, Renmin University of China; Deputy Director, Institute of Sexuality and Gender

Presentation

To provide context for the topic of discussion, Dr. Huang opened her speech by highlighting the contrasting images of sexuality in China. On one hand, imperial practices like foot-binding, court concubines, and polygamous ernai (二奶; literally “second milk”) infuse the concept of prostitution with a sort of artistic and aesthetic beauty. More common to contemporary observers is the asexual, androgynous communist youth portrayed most often by the Cultural Revolution’s Red Guards.

Dr. Huang explained how in ancient China, prostitutes were revered for their numerous talents, which extended far beyond sexual techniques to include poetry, calligraphy, singing, dancing, and playing various instruments. Such views are evidenced by documentation of Tang dynasty brothels as well as records kept by high court officials. The historical shift in views on Chinese prostitution began with the May Fourth Movement and its efforts to erase what many contemporaries saw as poisonous and outdated cultural practices. The ideas that began in the early 20^th century culminated shortly after the communist revolution, when Mao declared that the government had successfully eradicated both prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) from China. Dr. Huang noted the political significance of this supposed accomplishment, as modern politicians often invoke it to rile up support for anti-prostitution campaigns: “If Mao did it, why can’t we?” During the early stages of China’s ongoing reform period, the government maintained that foreigners were to blame prostitution’s resurgence, as evidenced by propaganda slogans like “reborn of the dead ash” and “flies from outside.”

The second wave of anti-prostitution, as Dr. Huang argued, began in 1981 with a declaration prohibiting the sale of sexual services. Organizing acts of prostitution is a criminal offense, and buying or selling sex is punishable by up to 15 days’ detention and a RMB 5000 fine for first-time offenders, as well as six months of re-education. Perhaps even more of a deterrent is the notification of family members that is surely meant to incur a shocking loss of face in a society focused on outward appearances. Every year, the government carries out saohuang (扫黄; literally “sweep the yellow/carnal) campaigns that purport to help rid China of its illegal sex trade. In practice, however, the industry continues to thrive.

Dr. Huang then provided a brief conceptual framework of Chinese sex industry workers. Most prostitutes in China are female sex workers (FSWs), though gigolo “money boys” (MBs) and trans-gender workers do exist, too. Many FSWs have managers who solicit clients; these managers are often middle-aged and may even carry babies with them as they look for customers. Dr. Huang stated that outside of those who work in the industry, there are but a small number of grassroots organizations that work with sex workers. As they have no legal status in China, such groups are rare, and none existed as late as ten years ago. Today, Dr. Huang estimates that somewhere around seven such groups operate in China, not including any international organizations. One problem for the shockingly low presence of such grassroots organizations is that sex industry workers do not have a cohesive sense of community identity.

Moving into further detail, Dr. Huang shared some of her personal observations regarding recent changes in the Chinese sex industry, which she has been observing since 1999. Many of today’s FSWs, as Dr. Huang noted, view the prostitutes of the 1970s and 1980s as joining their profession simply for hedonistic pleasure, whereas they view themselves as earning money for their families. Surprisingly, the price of sex is falling: Dr. Huang said that in one area she studied, what cost RMB 250 only ten years ago is now available for RMB 130, a trend that is starkly different from the continued rise in housing prices and CPI. Today, there is a wider range of sexual services available, including pockets of S&M workers, as well as higher mobility not only in terms of regional borders, but also a larger percentage of workers who also have other jobs. One disconcerting development is the increasing overlap with drug use.

To understand the multiple facets of the sex industry in China, Dr. Huang chose three lenses through which the audience could examine prostitution: individual, organizational, and structural levels. On the individual level, Dr. Huang shared her research on how FSWs viewed their profession. There was a strong focus on using not only one’s body, but also one’s brain, in order to survive and make money. Dr. Huang observed stigmas against FSWs who were seen as too erotic, which could mean enjoying work too much or providing services outside of vaginal intercourse, such as oral or anal sex. FSWs were often concerned about abortion-induced infertility as well as general health issues, as well as fear of being discovered by their families. In general, she noted that most FSWs work far from their hometowns. Another common theme that Dr. Huang continually referred to was the desire among many FSWs to live a fashionable, urban lifestyle that was endowed to them through their profession and the money they made by selling their bodies.

On an organizational level, Dr. Huang detailed the hierarchy of venues used for prostitutions. Large hotels and nightclubs rank as some of the most high-end locations in the sex trade. Massage parlors and KTV bars formed another tier, while hair salons came in below that. Standing on the unequivocal lowest rung are street callers, who solicit clients themselves. Dr. Huang noted how an increasingly large segment of FSWs are based on the internet. Lastly, she suggested that the most coveted status was that of the “second wife,” for whom the identity of sex worker begins to fade in some respects. In addition to venues, Dr. Huang also classified the types of working relationships most common among FSWs. One of the most common arrangements, referred to as employment-based prostitution, involves a manager who takes a 20-30% fee for every sex act traded. FSWs with a “housing with work” would be free to leave whenever they pleased, though many felt social pressure and unspoken control yielded by the managers. Lastly, Dr. Huang said that in the 20 red-light districts she has studied, only in two did she find situations where FSWs had been forced into semi-slavery types of prostitution. Another even rarer employment situation involved self-employed FSWs forming a sort of co-op that employed a manger who was subject to the dismissal of the FSWs themselves.

Further broadening the scope of discussion, Dr. Huang approached Chinese prostitution from a structural viewpoint. While many governmental authorities claim that prostitution leads to corruption, she argued that the reverse is true, citing a rumor that European sex workers attracted Chinese clients on vacation by exclaiming, “We can issue you a fapiao!” (发票; official invoice) Dr. Huang argued that compared to 30 years ago, FSWs have much higher social mobility in today’s China. She also cited the work of a colleague, Dr. Pan Suiying, who argues that over the past 30 years, China has undergone a sexual revolution, not only with regards to prostitution, but also views towards issues like premarital sex and gender identity. In the end, however, the stigma towards prostitutes remains strong, contributing a great deal to ongoing physical and psychological violence.

Moving forward, Dr. Huang highlighted two recent policy changes that have significantly affected the sex industry in China. First, she referenced an initiative by the Health Bureau system to move towards 100% condom use and improved health education. While some argue otherwise, Dr. Huang holds that this in no way indicates a move towards the legalization of prostitution. The second and more far-reaching policy change began in 2010, since when crackdowns on brothels have increased in severity and frequency. Unlike the previously discussed policy, this is implemented by the Public Security Bureau system, which has vastly different goals and motivations. While it used to be the case that street workers were the most susceptible to police intervention, government authorities recently shut down Beijing’s notorious “Heaven on Earth” (天上人间) nightclub, where any wallet slimmer than RMB 2000 had no chance of purchasing an illicit service.

Despite such developments, Dr. Huang asserts that the market for purchased sex continues to grow in China, citing a nationwide survey that shows the percentage of sex clients has risen from 7% to 9% of the male population. Furthermore, she observed how the FSWs and their managers have found creative methods to avoid the authorities. Instead of running operations out of the front door of their establishments, many would use the back entrance instead; others wait at home for notification via cell phone or internet. Work hours have changed as well: Dr. Huang told of one street walker who is up at 5am to solicit retirees who rise early to buy breakfast, and perhaps a bit extra. Drawing her listeners back to the personal situations of each FSW, Dr. Huang shared quotations of women who are determined to work despite the hardships incurred by authorities.

Sadly, the new crackdowns have created some unforeseen drawbacks. Of greatest concern is the increased gender-based violence at the hands of police and also local gangs. The health service delivery system, which already faced serious challenges, is now being forced underground, especially as used condoms have been used as evidence to convict FSWs, further lowering the rate of condom use. Finally, the new anti-prostitution campaigns have created more expansive sexual networks as FSWs move from large urban centers into smaller cities and even towns, where enforcement is much more lax.

To finish her speech, Dr. Huang made a policy proposal, one that strives to move beyond the dialogue of rights and legalization. Instead, she argued for increased cooperation between FSWs and local police in order to assuage some of the previously cited problems.

Q&A

The Q&A session began with inquiries into forced prostitution and human trafficking. Dr. Huang noted that she classifies “semi-slave” FSW relationships as ones marked by physical force; economic force is much harder to define, though she did remind the audience that all FSWs are trying to avoid violent situations, so the recent wave of crackdowns is indeed alarming. One issue with linking prostitution and human trafficking is that in China, trafficking often exists outside the realm of the sex industry, as with imported wives and laborers from Southeast Asia. Responding to a question on public views towards the sex trade, Dr. Huang explained that 40% of respondents believed that the government punishments for those involved in prostitution were too harsh.

Over 220 guests packed themselves into the venue to attend this event, and dozens more left once the room reached capacity. Following the formal discussion was further intellectual exchange over food and drink, strengthening the ever-expanding ThinkIN China community.

Prof. Dr. ZHANG Qingmin 张清敏

Professor, Center for International & Strategic Studies, School of International Studies, Peking University

Prof. ZHANG works at the Center for International & Strategic Studies in the School of International Studies at Peking University. He previously taught at China Foreign Affairs University, and has been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at George Washington University from 2004-2005. He received his Ph.D. from China Foreign Affairs University and his MA from Brigham Young University. His teaching and research includes China’s Foreign Policy, U.S. Foreign Policy, diplomatic studies, theory of foreign policy analysis, and Sino-US relations.

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Dr. ZHANG Ruijie 张瑞杰

Managing Director, Low Carbon City China Programme (LCCC), Beijing

ZHANG Ruijie is the Managing Director of Low Carbon City China Program Management Office (LCCC PMO), Secretary-general of Low Carbon Economy Committee and Director of International Cooperation Department, CAPEC. His major roles are to provide professional service to Chinese cities on the way to low carbon and sustainable urbanization through the development of tools and initiatives in sectors of green building, green industry, low carbon transport, low carbon city policy and municipal management, so as to promote low carbon development in Chinese cities. Prior to joining LCCC PMO, he was the Director of International Business Department, Invest Beijing International, with particular responsibility for matching infrastructure projects with funds. He has been involved in international business for more than 20 years visiting more than 50 countries. He worked as consulting engineer in African and Southeastern countries for more than 10 years and has published extensively on low carbon development, infrastructure financing, global warming, energy efficiency and renewable energy issues.