Prof. Dr. Dominic Sachsenmaier
Jacobs University
China in the Global Academic Landscapes
Herrenhausen Castle/ December 10-12, 2014
Conference Report
Summary
The event “China in the Global Academic Landscapes” actually consisted of three separate parts.
The main conference was preceded by a separate workshop of twelve international young
scholars from a variety of countries who had been invited to Hanover. The main conference dealt
with the academic implications of the growing global significance of China in general and its
university sector in particular. Among other subjects, it discussed the massive transformations of
China’s research and tertiary education sectors, as well as their international entanglements. Yet
the conference did not solely deal with academic structures and policies: rather, it also paid due
attention to important epistemological challenges and changes. For instance, focusing on the
social sciences and humanities, the participants debated whether the current transformations in
the global academic landscapes (and their underlying sociologies of knowledge) will also have
an impact on the future directions that research might take in single fields. Immediately
following the end of the main conference, there was a meeting of leading representatives of
German academic foundations as well as the Federal Ministry of Education.
Background
The tripartite event held in December 2015 followed a workshop dealing with “China in the
German Academic Landscapes”, most notably the humanities and social sciences in this country.
This workshop also took place in Herrenhausen castle, in October 2013 and here the invited
group of scholars (representing different academic fields and institutions) critically assessed the
status quo of China-related research and teaching in Germany. During this workshop, it became
2
clear that the German academic situation can impossible be discussed while ignoring
developments in other countries. It hardly needs to be mentioned that the latter are closely
connected with research elsewhere, forming transnational professional fields. An issue of great
concern, which emerged from these deliberations during the first Herrenhausen workshop, was
the shifting scales of global influence and their implications for academic systems such as the
German one.
In 2015, additional funding provided by the Volkswagen Foundation put the organizers of this
conference into the position to issue an international call for applications which was specifically
targeted to “young scholars,” defined as early career academics, ranging from advanced doctoral
students to assistant professors. It was possible to invite a group of young scholars from various
countries, ranging from Canada to Bangladesh to audit the main conference and participate in the
general discussions. In addition, each of the young scholars got the chance to present his or her
own research in a poster session during the main conference.
Each member of the young scholar group was working primarily on China-related themes while
at the same time representing different disciplinary approaches. At the same time, all of the
invited young scholars had already personal experiences with two or more academic systems in
different parts of the world. In their separate workshop, which was held immediately preceding
the main conference the group had its own discussion on the present international condition and
future trajectories of China-related academic work. The young scholars group formulated some
points and questions which were then picked up during the final panel.
Conference Report
This topic was being further pursued during the December 2015 conference, which was entitled
China in the Global Academic Landscapes.” The event convened renowned researchers,
academic policy-makers and university administrators from Europe, East Asia and North
America. The participants included such renowned scholars as Wang Hui (Tsinghua University),
Lydia Liu (Columbia University), or Prasenjit Duara (National University Singapore) - for short
biographies of the active conference participants see Appendices 2&3. As a first main subject,
3
the conference dealt with the changing place of China within other academic systems. From the
outset, there was a consensus that the conference should consider the wider global contexts of
academic transformations, we without imbuing this topic with a Cold War mentality and also not
with a frontier spirit. The point was not to rethink higher education sectors in the West while
defining China either as a source of competition, or as a land of endless opportunities for
resource-hungry universities.
Much rather, the conference participants were encouraging the scholarly community to think
more globally about the overarching theme of China in the Global Academic Landscapes, which
means that we do not start from premises surrounding national academic systems or even
“national interests.” To be more precise, the first panel offered critical observations on the
structures and cultures of Chinese Studies in various European countries, including Great Britain,
France and Germany. The second panel posed some challenging questions regarding the
trajectories of China-related research in general but did so with a special emphasis on the United
States. The following two panels then set the focus on different world regions. Mainly dealing
with regions in East and Southeast Asia, the third panel explored transnational or decidedly
regional possibilities for developing China as an academic arena. The fourth panel treated China
as a global academic subject while concentrating on universities in Turkey and India. The last
two panels then chiefly addressed some important transformations that are tied to the growth of
the Chinese university sector. Panel five offered reflections and observations on new
transnational collaborations involving Chinese universities. The sixth regular panel then
investigated important aspects of the enormous transformations affecting research and tertiary
education in China (for the conference program see Appendix 1, for abstracts of the conference
papers see Appendix 4).
Yet the global/local paths and patterns of academic structures and institutions relevant for the
study of China were only one foundational theme of the conference. An area of equal importance
were the epistemological impacts of the changing academic landscapes in the past, present and
future. This was particularly relevant for the social sciences and humanities – fields that are, after
all, not only subject to academic transformations but whose task it is also critique, rethink and
contextualizing them. In various presentations as well as discussions it became clear that the
4
changing patterns of worldwide academic influence pose some rather new challenges to the
social sciences and humanities. At the same time, they grant a new character to problems that
have already been long debated. An example is the question of Eurocentrism which for many
decades has been subject to academic controversies. But today, various presenters argue, changes
in global influence and world order give this topic a new spin. For instance, when we are
problematizing the continued marginalization of China in most European academic systems, we
are no longer merely reproaching a hegemonic pose. Much rather, university systems which
continue to marginalize East Asia (and other parts of the world, for that matter) now start looking
somewhat out-of-date. If, with an ironic twist, we would view this situation through the linear
scales reaching from forerunners to latecomers, it is now many European systems that start
looking “behind.”
This is just brief example for the close entanglements between structural transformations and
epistemological challenges in the social sciences and the humanities. Yet certainly various
conference participants warned that we should not go so far as to suggest that we are already
looking at a post-Western-centric setting when discussing the current global condition of the
social sciences and humanities. Many of the older imbalances and power relations remain. For
instance, despite the rapid climb of leading Chinese universities in the worldwide academic
ranking systems, scholarship produced there is still underrepresented in the West (and many
other parts of the world). To further concretize this example: global historians or global
sociologists in Europe and the United States are typically not even remotely aware of the
scholarship produced in such an important academic system as China. At the same time, their
Chinese colleagues need to refer to Anglo-American publications in order to be taken seriously
by their local own colleagues. In the social sciences and humanities this pattern is arguably even
stronger than in the natural sciences – but this is a subject that we may be able to discuss during
these coming two days.
In other words, it became clear that hierarchies of knowledge continue to characterize the social
sciences and humanities. According to most participants, these patterns will most probably
change, sometime and somehow – which again leads to a large variety of questions. Many of
them surround the global impact of China’s changing academic system. For instance, will the
5
Chinese university sector, will its surrounding intellectual communities be closely wedded to
projects of nation-building, or will they unfold their inherent regional and transnational
potentials? Will leading Chinese universities come to figure as global academic transaction hubs
bringing together minds from all over the world? If so, will they follow the footsteps of USAmerican universities? Or would globally connected scholarly communities also lead into
different intellectual directions when they are based at Chinese universities?
These questions were being further pursued in the closing note by William Kirby (Harvard
University), and at the same time they were being related to the conditions of China-related
academic structures and cultures in Germany. This was also the main theme in the concluding
public panel which was composed of representatives of the Federal Ministry of Education, the
Max Planck Society as well as important representatives of German foundations, including
Wilhelm Krull (general secretary, Volkswagen Foundation), Margaret Wintermantel (president,
German Academic Exchange Service/DAAD), Peter Strohschneider (president, German National
Research Foundation/DFG). For short biographies see Appendix 3.
The panel returned to some of the issues that were being discussed during the first conference on
“China in the German Academic Landscapes”, which was held in 2013. For instance, the
discussions confirmed some official data that in the natural sciences, Sino-German academic
collaborations are far more vivid, wide-spread. They also tend to be more evenly balanced in the
sense of shared funding and an equal exchange of scholars. Outside the field of sinology, the
social sciences and humanities still hardly serve as academic bridge-builders with Chinese or
East Asian scholarship.
A second issue were the institutional settings of China-related scholarship in Germany. To start
with some facts and figures: there are barely more than 60 professors in Germany whom one
could categorize as “China specialists.” This number also includes the field of sinology: the latter
discipline hosts the lion’s share of China specialists in the ranks of university professors: about
39. The rest, a little more than twenty professorships are spread over a large variety of fields
ranging from the political sciences to history and from literature to sociology.
6
This led, thirdly, to the presence of expertise on China within many academic fields. Even at
many important universities, large fields such as political sciences, economics or philosophy do
not have a single faculty member working on China within their ranks. For instance, in all of
Germany only two history professors can be categorized as scholars working on China. Several
panelists maintained that the absence of China-related scholarship in larger fields leads to
significant problems. In terms of research, the institutional pattern, which segregates many
experts on China into sinology departments, can make it harder to break through Eurocentric
disciplinary cultures. Time and again, participants of the October 2013 conference observed the
relative disinterest of many professors in Germany in non-Western world regions. In terms of
teaching, it means that many students (especially those outside of regional studies) are not in the
position to gain access to China-related knowledge, even if they are interested in it. The
Western-centric of many key disciplines may not adequately prepare the group of individuals
who in the future want to hold a responsible position, no matter whether in academia, business,
politics or other sectors.
This open panel was followed by a brief closed meeting with the same panelists. During the
meeting it was argued that in Germany there is quite a potential to significantly strengthen the
position and impact of China-related scholarship. A major factor is the unusually strong role of
third-party funding (particularly supplied by foundations) at German universities. Soft money
can create new structures rather quickly, even if only on a temporary basis. There are some
successful examples for institutions in which experts on China are now working together with
other scholars, covering wider – regional or even global – research and teaching agendas. Yet the
some attendees also remarked that it would be desirable to conceptualize alternatives to the
currently existing institutional setups. This raises the general question, what specific structures
and kinds of resources would be needed for the German academic system. For instance, are
special forms of transnational collaboration (for example with institutions in East Asia) but also
on a European level feasible? The meeting concluded with an eye on the possibility of holding
another meeting of academic decision-makers and representatives of foundations as well as
ministries of education (federal and state level).
7
8
Appendix 1: Conference Program
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
16.30 – 18.00: Welcome Statements and Keynote
Welcome Statements: Dr. Wilhelm Krull, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Osterhammel
Introduction: Prof. Dr. Dominic Sachsenmaier
Keynote: Prof. Dr. Wang Hui, "The Crisis of Equality in Difference"
18.00 – 18.30: Break
18.30 – 20.00: Panel 1: Trajectories of China-Related Research and Education
Within the EU
Chair: Prof. Dr. Prasenjit Duara
-
Prof. Dr. Nicolas Standaert, “The Field of Sinology in European Academic
Systems: Future Perspectives”
-
Prof. Dr. Natascha Gentz, "The position of China-related research in the British
social sciences and humanities"
20.00: Dinner
9
Thursday, December 11, 2014
09.30 – 11.00: Panel 2: China-Related Research in the West: New Disciplinary
Cultures, Topics and Contents?
Chair: Prof. Dr. Axel Schneider
-
Prof. Dr. Lydia Liu, ”Will the West ‘Lose’ China Again?”
-
Prof. Dr. Kang Liu, "China Studies and Cultural Studies: Paradigm Shifts of Area
Studies and Interdisciplinary Research"
11.30 – 13.00: Panel 3: Regions, Regionalism and Chinese Studies
Chair: Prof. Dr. Klaus Mühlhahn
-
Prof. Dr. Ping-Chen Hsiung, "China as Seen From Within or Outside Its Border"
-
Prof. Dr. Prasenjit Duara, “Network Asia and China: Sustainability and Regional
Studies”
14.15 – 15.45: Panel 4: Newly Studying a New China – Perspectives from Turkey
and India
Chair: Prof. Dr. Peer Vries
-
Prof. Dr. Manoranjan Mohanty, "China as a New Global Subject: Reflections from
India"
-
Prof. Dr. Selcuk Esenbel, "Thinking of China in Turkey; The Present State of
Chinese and Asian Studies in Turkey"
16.15 – 17.45: Panel 5: Building New Academic Institutions between China and the
West.
Chair: Prof. Dr. Dominic Sachsenmaier
-
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Henze, “China’s Changing Roles in the Global Educational
Market”
-
Prof. Dr. Herbert Jäckle, "A Glance at China´s Development in Life Sciences"
10
Friday, December 12, 2014
9.15 – 11.30: Panel 6: Chinese Education: Changing Patterns and
Internationalization
Chair: Prof. Dr. Sabine Dabringhaus
-
Prof. Dr. David Goodman, "China's Universities and Social Change:
Expectations, Aspirations, and Consequences”
-
Prof. Dr. David Zweig, “Presidential ‘Pull’ and Brain Circulation in China”
12.00 – 13.00: Closing Note
Chair: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Osterhammel
-
Prof. Dr. William Kirby, “The Chinese Century? The World of Universities in
Modern China”
14.00 – 15.30: Discussion Panel: China-Related Research: What Structures and
Resources are Needed?
Chair: Dr. Wilhelm Krull
-
Prof. Dr. Hiltraud Casper-Hehne
-
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Renn
-
Dr. Maximilian Metzger
-
Prof. Dr. Peter Strohschneider
-
Prof. Dr. Margret Wintermantel
11
Appendix 2: Short Bios of Presenters and Chairs
Dabringhaus, Sabine
Sabine Dabringhaus is holding the chair for East Asian History (Department of History) at the
University of Freiburg. She is director of the Freiburg Center for Transcultural Asian Studies
(CETRAS). Moreover, she is a co-publisher of “Periplus: Jahrbuch für Außereuropäische
Geschichte", Essen, Germany (2003) and the journal “Qing History Overseas Research”
(Qingshi yicong), Beijing, China (2004).
Duara, Prasenjit
Prasenjit Duara is the Raffles Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore
where he is also the Director of Asian Research Institute and Research in Humanities. From 1990
until 2008, he taught at the University of Chicago where he was chair of the China Studies
Committee (1994-1996) and subsequently, chair of the History Department (2004-2007). His
new book “The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future" will be
published by Cambridge UP in Dec 2014.
Esenbel, Selçuk
Selçuk Esenbel is emeritus professor of history at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey, and
academic coordinator of the Asian Studies Center, founding director and presently advisor of the
Confucius Institute at the same institution. Professor Esenbel has published many articles in
various professional journals as well as a number of books on history of Asia with particular
focus on Japanese history. Her research interests cover Japan and the world of Islam (recently
Japan, Turkey, and the World of Islam, Brill Global Oriental, 2011, Thinking of China in
Turkey,ed., Bogazici University Press, 2013 in Turkish), Japanese pan-Asianism, modernization
in Japan and Ottoman Turkey, and Japanese-Ottoman/Turkish relations.She is the recipient of the
Humboldt Foundation Georg Forster Award 2012, Order of the Rising Sun 2010, Fulbright
Senior Scholar 2000, among other awards.
12
Gentz, Natascha
Professor Natascha Gentz is the director of the Scottish Centre for Chinese Studies and the
director of the Confucius Institute for Scotland at the University of Edinburgh and. She was
engaged in various funded research projects and in teaching in the Chinese Departments at
Heidelberg and Göttingen University, and Junior Professor at Frankfurt University before taking
up the Chair at Edinburgh University. Her publications include a monograph on the history of
Chinese journalism and two edited volumes, on transcultural knowledge transfer in Late Qing
China, and on how global media are shaping cultural identities.
Goodman, David S G
David Goodman is Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney; in the School of
Social and Behavioural Sciences at Nanjing University; and Professor of China Studies at Xi’an
Jiaotong Liverpool University (Suzhou). His research is mainly concerned with social and
political change at the local level in China, and he is currently working on a study of China’s
new economic elites. His most recent publications include China's Peasants and Workers
(Edward Elgar, 2012) with Beatriz Carrillo; Middle Class China (Edward Elgar, 2013) with
Minglu Chen; and Class in Contemporary China (Polity Press, 2014.)
Henze, Jürgen
Jürgen Henze is Professor for Comparative Education at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since
1993. Furthermore, he is the co-director of the Research Center for Intercultural Education and
Communication at East China Normal University, Shanghai. As a visiting scholar he has taught
at many universities such as Stanford University, University of Hong Kong, East China Normal
University, Shanghai, and Zheijang Normal University, Jinhua. In the past, professor Henze has
provided expert reports to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).
Hsiung, Ping-Chen
Hsiung Ping-chen is a Professor of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who also
carries the capacities of the Senior Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor and the Director of the
Research Institute for the Humanities at the university. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts
at The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2011, and Dean of the College of Liberal
Arts at Taiwan Central University from 2004 to 2007. Also, Prof Hsiung has been serving as the
13
Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taipei since 1990, and
K.T. Li Chair at Central University in Taiwan since 2006. Furthermore, she held visiting
professorships at UCLA, Cornell University, University of Michigan, Freie Universität Berlin,
and Keio University, Japan. An internationally renowned scholar in her field, she has also made
remarkable achievements in academic administration.
Jäckle, Herbert
Herbert Jäckle is Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie (Göttingen,
Germany) and former Vice-President of the Max Planck Society (6/2002 - 6/2014). He studied
Chemistry and Biology (Universität Freiburg) and spent his postdoc at the University of Texas at
Austin (USA). He held positions as staff scientist at the EMBL (Heidelberg), as research group
leader (Max-Planck-Institut für Entwicklungsbiologie, Tübingen) and as professor for genetics
(Ludwig Maximilian Universität, München). He is a member of EMBO, the Academia Europaea,
and German Academies of Sciences (Leopoldina and Göttingen). He obtained several scientific
awards (including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the Otto Bayer Prize and the Louis
Jeantet Prize for Medicine), and serves on Advisory Boards both in academia and industry. He is
author of >200 scientific articles.
Kirby, William
William Kirby is T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies and Spangler Family Professor of
Business Administration at Harvard University, where he is concurrently Chairman of the
Harvard China Fund and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai. He is the former Dean
of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and former director of the Fairbank Center for
Chinese Studies. Professor Kirby has published extensively on China's relations with Europe, the
history of modern Chinese capitalism, the history of freedom in China, the international socialist
economy of the 1950s, and relations across the Taiwan Strait. His most recent book (with F.
Warren McFarlan and Regina Abrami) is, Can China Lead? His current book project is on the
future of universities in Europe, North America, and China.
Lange, Peter
Peter Lange is the Thomas A. Langford University Professor of Political Science and Public
Policy. For the past fifteen years he was Provost of Duke University after earlier serving as Vice
Provost for Academic and International Affairs and and chair of the Political Science
Department. He also served as chair of the Joint Committee on Western Europe of the Social
14
Science Research Council. His principal interests are comparative politics and political economy
and twentieth century European politics. During his tenure as Provost he led the effort to create
Duke-Kunshan University in Kunshan, China and now serves as Chair of its Board.
Liu, Kang
Liu Kang is Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies at Department of Asian and Middle Eastern
Studies, and Director of China Research Center, Duke University, U.S.A. and also Chair
Professor and Dean of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Shanghai Jiaotong University,
China He is the author of ten books, including Aesthetics and Marxism(Duke University Press,
2000), Globalization and Cultural Trend in China(University of Hawaii Press, 2003),
Culture/Media/Globalization (Nanjing University Press, 2006). In addition, Liu Kang published
widely in both English and Chinese on issues ranging from contemporary Chinese media and
culture, globalization, to Marxism and aesthetics. His current projects include global surveys of
China’s image, Chinese soft power and public diplomacy, and political and ideological changes
in China.
Liu, Lydia
Lydia H. Liu is the Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, in the
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and at the Institute for Comparative Literature
and Society. She is the founding Director of the Center for Translingual and Transculture Studies
at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her scholarship centers on modern China, cross-cultural
exchange, and global transformation in modern history. Among her many publications, she is the
author of The Clash of Empires: the Invention of China in Modern World Making (Harvard UP,
2004), The Freudian Robot: Digital Media and the Future of the Unconscious (U of Chicago
Press, 2010), Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity
(Stanford UP, 1995), and more recently, The Birth of Chinese Feminism: Essential Texts in
Transnational Feminism co-edited with Rebecca Karl and Dorothy Ko.
Mohanty, Manoranjan
Manoranjan Mohanty is Chairperson and Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi
and Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi and President,
Development Research Institute, Bhubaneswar. A former Professor of Political Science and
Director, Developing Countries Research Centre at the University of Delhi, he is Editor of Social
Change and a former Editor of China Report. He has been a Visiting Fellow in many
15
Universities including, UC, Berkeley, CASS, Beijing, IFES, Moscow, Oxford and UC, Santa
Barbara. His recent publications include Grass-roots Democracy in India and China (Co-ed.
2007), India: Social Development Report 2010 (Ed. 2010), Weapon of the Oppressed: An
Inventory of People’s Rights in India (Co-author, 2011), Land, Equity and Democracy (Co-ed,
2012),The Political Philosophy of Mao Zedong ( 1978, 2012 ) and Ideology Matters: China from
Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping (2014).
Mühlhahn, Klaus
Klaus Mühlhahn is Professor of Chinese Society and Culture at Freie Universität Berlin and
Vice-Director of the Graduate School of East Asian Studies. Since July 2014, he is Vice
President of International Affairs at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2007 to 2010 he has been
Professor for East-Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University. Since 2013 he is the
executive director of the academic department East-Asia and Near East at Free University. His
research interests cover the history and culture of the late imperial and modern China (18th to
20th century) with a major focus on cultural and social history.
Osterhammel, Jürgen
Jürgen Osterhammel is a professor of modern history at the University of Konstanz (Germany)
and a member of the board of trustees of the Volkswagen Foundation. He is the author of The
Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (2014) and of several
other books on European and Chinese history, the history of ideas and the theory of history.
Sachsenmaier, Dominic
Dominic Sachsenmaier is Professor of Modern Asian History and also holds an active chair
professorship at the Global History Center in Beijing. Before coming to Jacobs in 2012, he held
faculty positions at Duke University as well as the University of California, Santa Barbara. His
main current research interests are Chinese and Western approaches to global history as well as
transnational connections of political and intellectual cultures in China. Furthermore he has
published in fields such as 17th-century Sino-Western cultural relations, overseas Chinese
communities in Southeast Asia, and multiple modernities. His most recent single-authored
monograph is “Global Perspectives on Global History. Theories and Approaches in a Connected
World” (Cambridge UP, 2011). Sachsenmaier serves on several editorial and advisory boards in
Asia, Europe and the United States.
16
Schneider, Axel
Axel Schneider is Professor of Modern Sinology at Göttingen University. Since 2010 he is
Director of the Centre for Modern East Asian Studies at said university. Prior to this position,
Axel Schneider was Professor of Modern China Studies at Leiden University, the Netherlands,
and Founding Director of the Modern East Asia Research Centre in Leiden from 2006 to 2009.
He has completed long-term research periods at Harvard University, Cheng-Chi University
(Taipei) and Beijing University. Since 2013 he is also long-term visiting professor at the History
Department of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. Schneider is specialized in modern Chinese
history with a focus on intellectual history and the history of science/scholarship.
Standaert, Nicolas
Nicolas Standaert is Professor at the University of Leuven and Head of the Sinology Department.
His research interests include cultural exchange between China and Europe (since the 17th
century), and his recent research focuses on rituality in intercultural contacts (ritual dances,
funeral rituals, local communities, spirituality) and on the role of (Chinese) historiography in this
exchange.
Vries, Peer
Peer Vries currently is professor for global economic history with an emphasis on the early
modern era at Vienna University. He graduated at Leiden University, where he has taught for
many years. He is co-founder of the Journal of Global History and of the Global Economic
History Network. He held guest-professorships in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and Tianjin China,
and was guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is member
of the Academia Europaea, of the European Research Council Advanced Grants Evaluation
Panel, The Study of the Human Past, and of the expert panel Cult3: History, History of Arts and
Archaeology of FWO (Flanders Organisation of Scientific Research).
Wang, Hui
Wang Hui is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature and the
department of history, Tsinghua Beijing. His researches focus on Chinese intellectual history. He
was the executive editor of the magazine “Dushu” from May 1996 to July 2007. Wang has been
Visiting Professor at Harvard, Edinburgh, Bologna (Italy), Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, and the
University of Washington, among others. In 2013, He was awarded the "Luca Pacioli Prize" in
Venice.
17
Zweig, David
DAVID ZWEIG is Chair Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology, and Director of the Center on Environment, Energy and Resource
Policy. He is also Associate Chairman, Center on China and Globalization, Beijing, consultant to
several provincial governments in China and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social
Services, adjunct professor at the National University of Defense Technology, and a Senior
Research Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, Vancouver. In 2013-14, he was awarded the
Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.
His four books include Internationalizing China: domestic interests and global linkages. His
current book projects include a study on returnees and a forthcoming edited book on US-China
competition in resource rich countries, entitled Sino-U.S. Energy Triangles: Resource Diplomacy
under Hegemony.
18
Appendix 3: Short Bios of Final Panelists
Casper-Hehne, Hiltraud
Hiltraud Casper-Hehne is Vice-president for International Affairs at the Georg-AugustUniversität of Göttingen since 2009, a University which has a strong focus on research and
teaching in Chinese Studies and on cooperation with China. In 2014 she was Chair of the expert
advisory board of the German Ministry for Education and Research developing a strategy for
cooperation with China in the sectors of higher education, occupational training, and the human
and social sciences. She is Professor for Intercultural German Studies at the University of
Göttingen since 2004. Furthermore, she is director of the Institute for German-Chinese Cultural
Comparison and head of the Department of Intercultural German Studies since 2004. She is
distinguished professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Nanjing University.
Krull, Wilhelm
Wilhelm Krull has been running the Volkswagen Foundation since 1996. Besides his
professional activities in science policy as well as in the promotion and funding of research, he
was and still is a member of numerous national, foreign, and international committees. At
present he is the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation Georg-August-Universität Göttingen,
a member of the Scientific Advisory Commission of the State of Lower Saxony and of the Board
of Regents of several Max Planck Institutes. In 2012 he was appointed a member of the
Academia Europaea and the Research, Innovation, and Enterprise Council of the Prime Minister
of Singapore.
Renn, Jürgen
Jürgen Renn is Professor of History of Science, teaching at Humboldt University Berlin, Free
University Berlin and at Boston University. Furthermore, since 1994 he has been Director of the
Max-Planck-Institute for History of Science in Berlin. Professor Renn is involved in various
national and international expert committees such as the Berliner Excellence Cluster Topoi,
which is dedicated to promoting research in classical studies in Berlin.
19
Schütte, Georg
Since December 2009, Georg Schütte is State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research. From 2004 to 2009 Georg Schütte has been Secretary General of the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, an organization which enables scientific exchange. Dr. Schütte
also worked as Executive Director of the German-American Fulbright Commission in Berlin
from 2001 to 2003. Dr. Schütte was represented by Maximilian Metzger, Ministerialrat at the Federal
Ministry of Education
Strohschneider, Peter
Peter Strohschneider is Professor of Mediaevel History and President of the German Research
Foundation. From 2006 to 2011 he was Director of the German Council of Science and
Humanities. During this period he was engaged in the setup and development of the German
20
Appendix 4: Paper Abstracts
Prasenjit Duara: Network Asia and China: Sustainability and Regional Studies
Historically the region known as Asia had no strict boundaries; but it was densely interconnected
by networks of trade and religion. These informal networks had profound implications on the
relationship between culture and society across the region. For much of the last millennium
China was the pivot of network Asia. In many ways, something similar is re-emerging as many
Asian societies, in East, Southeast and South Asia are becoming increasingly linked through
production chains and cultural networks and China is once again emerging as the pivot.
But the differences may be more profound in this round of ‘network Asia’. Accelerating
economic globalization has also put at risk shared regional resources or ‘commons’ – water, air,
microbes, security, etc. Today, there is an emerging consensus that continuing our pursuit of
existing modes of production, consumption and the political economic arrangements
underpinning them will endanger planetary sustainability sooner than we realize. The role of
China in ‘network Asia’ is particularly important especially with regard to the environment in
Southeast Asia.
Whereas US based area studies was an effect of the US government’s requirement of language
and area studies of new nations, the present moment of area studies ought to reflect upon history
and society from the present imperatives of regional connections. This is a process that has
already begun to take off in many parts of the world and the region as well. I will survey some of
these initiatives and point to the areas emerging in this research, especially those that can provide
an alternate framework to rethink the future of the historical region from the perspective of
sustainable modernity.
Selcuk Esenbel: Present State of Chinese and Asian Studies in Turkey
The recent rise of interest in Chinese and Asian Studies in Turkey is part of the global processes
that have made China visible to the Turkish public. The study of Chinese language and China is
becoming more widespread than ever before. The increase of Chinese businesses in Turkey and
important economic and commercial relations with the government as well as the private sector
is acting as an agency in this development. However, closer relations between both countries also
point to existing negative attitudes about the Chinese that remains from the Cold War era.
Natascha Gentz: "The position of China-related research in the British social sciences and
humanities"
China related research in the British social sciences and humanities takes place in a variety of
fields and institutions, e.g Chinese Studies departments, disciplinary studies, China related
21
centres or language schools. The contribution will give a brief overview on China related
research and teaching in the UK and discuss its position within the parameters of area studies,
disciplinary studies or as language based studies. It will further explain different strategies of
supporting China related research in the UK or in China of major UK fundingbodies, such as the
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC), the Leverhulme Trust, or Universites’ China Committee in London (UCCL), and
discuss priority areas as defined by them. Finally and in more general terms it will discuss some
key opportunities and challenges of China related research and teaching as a subject in view of a
changing academic landscape and new data accessibility and availability of resources.
David S G Goodman: China's Universities and Social Change: Expectations, aspirations,
and consequences
Studies of higher education often assume that there is a close relationship between economic
growth, social change, and political transformation. It is argued that economic growth leads not
simply to a demand for the expansion of higher education but also an increase in social equity in
admissions to universities. Students become more radicalised through this process; and both
through economic growth and the expansion of higher education, academic staff who are the
core after all of a society’s public intellectuals, also become the voice for political
transformation. The evidence from the People’s Republic of China is that while there has been
massive economic growth during the last thirty years, and an equally dramatic expansion of
higher education since 1997, the consequences for higher education in terms of social change
have been considerably more limited. Moreover, while there have been some voices for limited
political transformation from staff and students, the demands for regime change that might have
been expected given the experiences of other countries are virtually non-existent.
Jürgen Henze: China’s Changing Roles in the Global Educational Market
My paper will take most recent international publications on changes in Chinese higher
education as a starting point for an indepth analysis of internationalisation and globalization
effects in China´s education system. A central argument is, that China has moved from being a
peripheral point of reference for the world´s educational attention to a more central position,
increasingly attracting the world´s research interest, partly due to economic and political
considerations, but also as result of (educational) rankings and large-scale comparisons of
learning achievement (PISA). A number of research clusters have emerged, in China as well as
outside China, among them:
(i)
Challenges for international Chinese students and scholars caused by processes of
adaptation and integration in host countries (as well as reverse processes after re-entry);
(ii)
recognition and interpretation of culture-based learning culture(s) and learning style(s)
and their effect on host countries´ higher education;
(iii) challenges for job-seeking returned Chinese academics;
(iv)
the impact of returned scholars on local institutional settings/culture and society;
22
(v)
regional developments in higher education and the growing educational inequality;
(vi)
the tension between globalization, glocalisation und regional autonomy and the question
of (cultural) belonging.
With these six clusters a landscape of discourse and research orientation will become available
for a broader discussion of the system´s international entanglements.
Hsiung Ping-chen: China as Seen From Within or Outside Its Border
China, or Chinese studies as its modern academic embodiment, can be and has been represented
from both within or outside its border both politically and intellectually. My essay will begin by
giving an instructional outline of how Chinese history and culture, as a traditional heritage, had
been established as “national humanities” in the early 20th century. It will then take the instance
of “the culture circle of the Han-Chinese Script (漢字文化圈)”, as proposed by Japanese
scholars to look at the problematik of the “Chineseness” against the millennia-old backdrop of
common East Asian stakeholding of this cultural tradition, and its later implications.
Furthermore, it will examine the post-war academic and social developments in Hong Kong and
Taiwan as representing viable and critical alternatives to the mainland Chinese interpretation of,
for example, Chinese history and Confucian philosophy. Positioned from these perspectives from
Chinese diasporic vices as well as the sinological views internationally, I will then like to dwell
upon the “national” as opposed to “non-national” characters of China as a civilization and a
subject and object of investigation.
Herbert Jäckle, "A glance at China´s development in life sciences"
In 1974, the midst of the Cold War, a delegation from the Max Planck Society (MPS) visited
China, in particular the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). At that time China was an
unchartered scientific territory and the visit was regarded a risky venture even though Chinese
scientists had studied in Germany before the Second World War, a connection the MPS wanted
to pick up on.
I will report how the CAS/MPS relationship developed. My report will focus on life sciences in
China: how it was re-started, grew, developed with an astounding dynamic, how it affected the
attitude of scientists. I will also speculate whether China will be able to soon reach the top in this
area of research.
Liu Kang: "China Studies and Cultural Studies: Paradigm Shifts of Area Studies and
Interdisciplinary Research"
The ongoing reflections on paradigm shifts in social sciences and humanities now confront the
subject of China with a new potency and urgency. China Studies in the West (the U.S. in
particular) derived its conceptual framework from cold war anti-communism and Third World
(under)development and served its purposes for the past six decades or so, until challenged
23
internally by postmodern critical theory and then ultimately by the subject China itself, with its
astounding ascension into a major world power. The scenario of "Cultural Studies (westerncentered) meets China Studies (equally western-centered" presented some promises to rethinking
the "old" essentialist and modernist paradigms, but the real challenge arises when the subject
China itself defies the western- or Euro-centricism in a more fundamental, and therefore
disturbing manner: the efficacy and adequacy of knowledge about the modern world and passage
to modernity, as amply verified by (western-centered) experience, now seem to be subverted by
China's experience of modernization/globalization. While Chinese intellectuals and academics
are scrambling to search for ways to understand and resolve its mounting problems, the world
(still, western-dominated) finds itself equally baffled by its inability to comprehend and describe
what happens in China. This presentation is intended to broach the issue again about the limits
and possibilities of contemporary knowledge and social research.
Lydia H. Liu: “Will the West “Lose” China again?”
The current global media hype about the decline of the US and the rise of China appears to create
more noise and confusion than it does clear-headed thinking about the future of our changing
world. We often hear people ask whether China, with its unprecedented economic growth and
rapid military buildup, would outstrip the U.S. as a hegemonic global power. The answer often
hinges on what politicians and experts know about China and how much they do not yet know.
Think tanks, research centers, and universities specializing in producing such knowledge in
North America and elsewhere have published impressive amounts of statistics, books and articles
on the subject. The goal, it seems, is to produce reliable, objective knowledge.
This will to knowledge defines academic research in general, of course, but with respect to
projected global rivalries where the object of study is anything but objective, one observes some
typical silences surrounding the epistemic and ethical dimensions of academic research. Both
these dimensions require that we take into account not only the institutional limitations of what
we know—such as the curious absence of any sustained dialogue between Americanists and
China specialists—but also the deep-seated structures of knowledge that bear upon people’s
thought and action on a daily basis within and outside academia. The trouble lies not in how
accurate and how reliable one’s knowledge about China can be, but in what one typically
disavows.
And what are those disavowals? In my presentation, I will draw on a couple of historical
instances from U.S.-China relations immediately after WWII by focusing on one of the lessons
we may learn from the American lament about the loss of China in 1949. That history is
strangely mirrored by the anxieties of a different kind when China becomes a success story
today. Will history repeat itself? If not, is there a remote possibility that we might envision
ethical relationships among large communities of people, even if brute realism dictates the
political destiny of states?
24
Manoranjan Mohanty: “China As A New Global Subject”
The global discourse on China has been dominated either by geopolitics or by economic reforms
and marginally pursued in terms of democratic transformation and even less in the scale of
socialism. During the cold war geopolitics pervaded much of the academic works and policy
analysis in the West and the discussion on China’s authoritarian polity was put within that
framework. After the onset of reforms in China followed by the wave of economic globalisation
across the world, the focus shifted to the spectacular achievements of the Chinese reforms and
open door. Thus in the Western media as well as scholarly writings China as the ‘new global
subject’ was an ‘Asian Giant’, an ‘’emerging market’ which had accomplished a ‘rebalancing of
the global economy’ with China having become the world’s second largest economy in 2010
and poised to surpass the US around 2040 reenvisioning a ‘Sino-centric world order’..
The Indian discourse on China, however, was much more variegated than the dominant western
perspective. Tagore set a trend of thought during his visit to China in 1924 which stressed the
civilisation strand in Indian perception of China and Chinese perception of India. The Buddhist
interaction from the first century AD till the 13th century formed the bedrock of this relationship.
When Nehru formulated the new Asian perspective at the Asian Relations Conference in 1946
and integrated the anti-colonial dimension with the cultural heritage and later jointly formulated
the Panchasheel in 1954 he tried to weave together elements of the modern nation-state with the
civilisational legacies. The 1962 War upset that model. After much turbulence in their relations,
domestic upsurges and shifts in foreign policy both India and China had returned to reclaim the
civilisational as well as anti-hegemonic baselines of the bilateral, regional and global policies in
the early years of the twenty first century.
The Indian academia, policy-making and media reflected not only the Western preoccupations,
as they were intellectually placed with deep connections with the West, more so after the
globalisation wave – as was the Chinese academia-, but also a number of fiercely debated
alternatives on economic policies, social justice, democracy including issues of selfdetermination, environment and cultural rights. The Western media may caricature the ‘play of
the elephant and the dragon’, but the Indian discourse on China as seen during the past hundred
and more years since the Indian soldiers fought on the British side against the Boxers has been
in the nature of a civilisational-political discourse. The Himalayas, for example, may be seen
both as a divider and as a unified eco-cultural sphere. The political and economic relations
between India and China that evolved since 1988, especially in a fast pace since 2003, reflect the
interplay of the geo-political and the geo-civilisational. Rather than only being taken in by the
rise of an economic giant and adjusting policies to meet China’s geo-political challenge and
market expansion in the Asia-Pacific and worldwide, the Indian debates treat China as a new
global subject in the global history of civilisational movement with people everywhere seeking
restructuring of power relations and development strategies at every level.
25
Nicolas Standaert: “The Field of Sinology in European Academic Systems: Future
Perspectives”
This paper gives a brief overview of the different approaches to the study of China in Europe
today. It focuses on the shifting meanings and boundaries of ‘Sinology’ by glossing at some
developments in Europe since the establishment of the first chair of Sinology at Collège de
France in 1814, exactly 200 years ago. It will furthermore suggest some challenges and
perspectives for the future development of Sinology in Europe in the context of a globalized
world.
David Zweig: “Presidential ‘Pull’ and Brain Circulation in China”
Under China’s long-term policy of recruiting the best overseas, Mainland academic talent, the
presidents of Chinese universities can play a major role. But, what are their incentives to do so?
Does their own experience overseas (or lack of such experience) influence their willingness to
recruit overseas faculty to return to China? This paper addresses these issues and finds that
presidents who have overseas degrees, as compared to those who have spent no time abroad or
only one or two years abroad as a Visiting Scholar, are far more likely to respond to the CCP’s
incentives to recruit overseas talent.
26
Appendix 5: Short Bios of Young Scholars
Anthony, Ross
Ross Anthony is an Andrew Mellon post-doctoral candidate at the Centre for Chinese Studies,
Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Prior to his post-doctoral position he has worked as
lecturer at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at Stellenbosch University. His
research focus lies on issues of security in relation to Chinese extractive industries in Africa.
Fan, Xin
Xin Fan is Assistant Professor of East Asian History at the State University of New York. In his
current research project, Fan investigates how the introduction of the Soviet higher education
model has impacted the history of knowledge production in 1950s-China.
Gow, Mike
Michael Ian Gow is currently holding the post of Global Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU Shaghai.
He completed his PhD in 2013 at the Centre for East Asian Studies and Graduate School of
Education at the University of Bristol. The title of Gow's postdoctoral research is: "Professing
Hegemony: Academia and the State Vision for Higher Education in 21st Century China."
Heger, Isabel
Isabel Heger is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Sinology at Free University Berlin. Her
research focus lies on nonmaterial concepts with psychological and social meaning in
contemporary China. She did her Bachelor's and Master's Studies in Sinology at the University
of Vienna.
Hopmann, Suy Lan
Suy Lan Hopmann is a PhD candidate and research associate at the Collaborative Research
Center at the Free University Berlin. Hopmann's research focus lies on contemporary China,
global history, higher education, sociological and gender aspects of work and migration.
27
Islam, Mohammad Mainul
Mohammad Mainul Islam is holding his PhD in Demography and Population Health from the
Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Bejing. Since 2013 he is a Postdoctoral
Fellow at McGill University with a research project on "Access to Reproductive Health Care for
Urban Migrant Women in Bangladesch"
Lo Porto-Lefébure, Alessia
Alessia Lo Porto-Lefébure is a doctoral student in the field of Sociology focusing on
"internationalization of universities and training of administrative elites in contemporary China"
at Sciences Po University. Since 2011 she has been the Director of the Alliance at Columbia
University, where she manages the joint-venture innovation in Higher Education and Research
between various universities.
Li, Gang
Gang Li is a PhD candidate currently doing research on "overseas mainland Chinese students'
engagement with democratic discourses and practices in Canada and the United States" at the
University of British Columbia, Canada. Prior to PhD he has worked as instructor at educational
institutes in Beijing.
Li, Jie
Jie Li is Ph.D. candidate at the University of Edinburgh. Before he studied at the University of
Hong Kong and the Xinghai Conservatory of Music. His Ph.D. is about “Sovietology in PostMao China”.
Luo, Xun
Xun Luo is research assistant and lecturer at the Department of Intercultural Studies and
Business Communication at the University of Jena, Germany. For his PhD thesis he focused on
28
understanding the sociocultural impact on differences of learning and styles and learning cultures
between Chinese and German college students.
Shen, Wei
Wei Shen is Jean Monnet Professor of EU-China Relations and Associate Dean for China at the
ESSCA School of Management. Since September 2014, he is Director of the Confucius Institute
at Lancaster University, UK. Shen's research interests cover China and international educational
mobility, and the impact of study abroad and return migration on Chinese society and higher
education, in particular.
Zhang, Chunjie
Chunjie Zhang is Assistant Professor for German at the Department of German and Russian of
the University of California. From 2011 to 2012 she has been Assistant Professor of Chinese at
the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Currently, she is working on a book
project entitled "German Transcrultura: Travel, Imagination, History and Geography".
Zhu, Jiani
Jiani Zhu is Assistant Professor of Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong
University. In her PhD research, Zhu delved into the academic adjustment of Chinese students at
German universities. Her research interests cover higher education in China and Chinese
students studying abroad.