Archive

event #42, Thursday, April 2nd, 2015

Speakers
Francesco Sisci, Senior Researcher at Renmin University
XIE Tao, Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University

Abstract

“How the Chinese look at themselves, the world, and the challenges of the future.
Where is China, What is China: Where are the traditional pigtails of the old mandarins, the Mao’s bicycles and his suits? Where are the large families with the many concubines? The stuff that made China for centuries in all the stories Chinese and foreigners told of this huge country is gone. China now is skyscrapers, limousines, fast trains, science fiction airports, bright neon lights that explode in the night more than fireworks.

Chinese are changing and have changed beyond recognition. In fact, they have changed so much that they do not see themselves in their present shape, just like an animal going through a metamorphosis. We are in the middle of this huge transformation and we don’t know if and when the new shape will stabilize and what impact it will have on the conscience of the Chinese and of the people of the world looking at China”

( Francesco Sisci, “A Brave New China – A Global Change, 2014)

LIANG Yabin, Associate Professor,  Institute for International StrategicStudies
Party School of the Central Committee of the C.P.C.

Dr. LIANG Yabin is currently associate professor of the Institute for International Strategic
Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of the C.P.C. He earned his Ph.D. in International
Relations from Peking University (2011). Liang’s other professional activities include: visiting
student at Cornell University (from Sept. 2009 to Sept. 2010), sponsored by the China Scholarship
Council; short term training at Scuola Superiore dell’Economia e delle Finanze (Senior School of
Economics and Finance, Italy), sponsored by the Italian Government (2012);
member of the Voluntary Visitor Program of the United States Department of State (2012).
His areas of research and teaching specialization include international politics, Sino-
U.S. Relations, Smart Weapons and International Relations. He is the author of The Secret of
Hegemony: Financial Logic Behind American Power (Xinhua Press 2012).
He has also published dozens of articles in Chinese journals.

Francesco Sisci, Senior Researcher at Renmin University of China

Francesco Sisci graduated at the University of Venice and he specialised in Chinese language. Subsequently he studied at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and in 1988 he became the first foreigner who was admitted to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He obtained his PHD in Chinese Classical Philology and Philosophy. He began his career as the correspondent of the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) in Beijing and later he contributed to Asia Times as Greater China correspondent. He worked as a correspondent for several major Italian newspapers such as Il sole 24 Ore, Corriere della Sera and later La Stampa. He has been a senior consultant for the Italian Ministry of Environment in China since 1999 and creating the framework of the most important Environmental cooperation with China, the Italian-Sino Environmental cooperation. He also held the position of the director of the Italian Institute of Culture in China for two years. He has been the coordinator of the largest cooperation program between and Italy and the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China since 2004. He was the Asia Editor of La Stampa from 2005 to 2010. He will present his latest publication “A Brave New China” to the ThinkIN China public on April 2nd, 2015.