Events in 2022

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LUCC Events in 2022

Recordings of many past events are available on LUCC's YouTube channel.

To stay informed of all our upcoming events, please sign up to our mailing list at: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk

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7 December 2022

PhD Seminar Series

"I am doing makeup for myself, or am I?" Choice, pleasure and postfeminism in China

Speaker: Ma Hua, University of East Anglia

Time: 1-2pm, Wednesday 7 December, 2022

Place: Faraday Seminar Room 3 - light refreshment provided, please register at httos://tinyurl.com/LUCC-HUAMA-PHD

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6 December 2022

PhD Seminar Series

The interaction between Chinese women's understanding of womanhood and their lived experience in UK higher education

Speaker: Qiao Dai, University of Glasgow

Time: 1-2pm, Tuesday 6 December 2022

Place: Online, register at https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-DAIQIAO

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23 November 2022

Research Seminar

International Law as Driver of Confrontation: UNCLOS and China’s Policy in the South China Sea

Speaker: Andrew Chubb, Lancaster University China Centre

Time: 12-1pm, Wednesday, 23 November 2022 - co-hosted by the Centre for International Law and Human Rights

Place: Marcus Merriman LT, and via Teams: https://tinyurl.com/AndrewChubb

Debates over international legal regimes, such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), have tended to revolve around the constraints international law may or may not place on confrontational state behavior, leaving its constitutive aspects underexplored. This article offers a counterintuitive explanation for why tensions in the South China Sea have risen, not declined, in the UNCLOS era. The new international regime reconstituted China and its neighbours’ interests in jurisdiction at sea, producing harder, yet also more ambiguous claims. Tracing four representative cases of China’s new and assertive patterns of behavior in the South China Sea in 2007-2008, it shows how the new challenges and opportunities presented by the implementation of the legal regime were crucial drivers of Beijing’s policy shift on its maritime periphery. Using PRC maritime law enforcement agency materials, internal government advisory papers, State Department cables, official statements and research interviews, the paper identifies three causal pathways linking the UNCLOS with China’s altered behavior. International law not only constrains confrontational state actions, but can also authorize, enable, and catalyze them.

Speaker bio: Andrew Chubb is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, researching the relationships between Chinese domestic politics and international relations. He is the author of Chinese Nationalism and the Gray Zone: Case Analyses of Public Opinion and PRC Foreign Policy (Naval War College Press, 2021) and the PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia (Routledge and Royal United Services Institute, 2021). Andrew is also acting director of the Lancaster University China Centre, and a Fellow of the Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society.

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22 November 2022

Research Seminar

Governance of Food Systems in China: a pork story on sustainability and resilienc

Speaker: Lingxuan Liu, Lancaster University Management School

Time: Tuesday 22 November 1.00pm-2.00pm

Place: FASS A008, Meeting Room 1 (beside Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre)

** LUNCH PROVIDED registration essential, please register at: https://tinyurl.com/LUCC-Liu **

Home of the world’s first strategic pork reserve, China's pork supply chains have experienced dramatic disturbances in recent years. This study examines how various contradictory pressures and policy responses have shaped the pork system in China. Pork-related policy priorities have swung between environmental sustainability and production recovery. Public authorities' weighing of sustainability and resilience has also led to contrasting views on policy formulation and implementation. Reorientation of the pork system for environmental sustainability undermined the system’s robustness to cope with the African Swine Flu epidemic, while dedicated policies on recovery have further compromised the original goals of systemic reorientation. We also discussed how governance has affected the resilience of the pork system and the trade-offs between systemic resilience and sustainability.

Speaker bio: Lingxuan Liu joined Lancaster University Management School in March 2016 as a Lecturer of Sustainability. His research interests include sustainable supply chains, sustainable and resilient food systems, corporate sustainability strategies, and ESG. He specializes in business sustainability issues in UK and China, but also has a general interest in developing countries, particularly Southeast Asia and Africa.

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16 November 2022

Roundtable

Classroom Strategies for Engaging International Students

Time: 1-2pm, Wednesday 16 November 2022

Speakers:

  • Ann-Marie Houghton (Dean of EDI)
  • Christine Mortimer (LUC-BJTU)
  • Zoe Zhu (LUMS)
  • Chris Longman (Educational Development)
  • Leandro Soriano Marcolino (Computing and Communications)
  • Tim Douglas (Engineering)

How to generate engagement from students who may be more accustomed to passive forms of learning? What are the ethics of teaching critical thinking to students in jurisdictions where its application may have negative consequences? A lengthening list of topics have become politically “sensitive,” for example Taiwan and Xinjiang for China, or the monarchy in Saudi Arabia; how best to cover such topics in the classroom without self-censoring or causing unnecessary offence? This roundtable discussion will tackle key themes of practice, ethics and principle in the internationalised classroom.

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26 October 2022

Book Launch

Anglo-Chinese Encounters Before the Opium War: A Tale of Two Empires Over Two Centuries

Speaker:

  • Dr. Sunny Xin Liu, UCLAN
  • Prof. Kerry Brown, KCL
  • Dr. Derek Hird, DeLC

Time: 2pm-330pm (UK time), 26 October 2022

Place: Fylde LT2 A16, Lancaster University. ** LIGHT REFRESHMENT PROVIDED for in-person attendees, please register at: https://tinyurl.com/2p9fupvp **

From Queen Elizabeth I’s letter to the Chinese Emperor Wanli in 1583 and ending with the letter from Lord Palmerston to the Minister of China just before the Opium War in 1840, Dr. Sunny Xin Liu’s new book explores Britain and China’s long journey from cultural diplomacy to gunboat diplomacy. In this seminar, Dr. Liu will share fascinating tales of long-forgotten Sino-British interactions from missionaries to scholars, from merchants to travelers and from artists to scientists.

Joining Dr. Liu in conversation will be eminent China expert Professor Kerry Brown, Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London and one of the UK's leading China experts, and Dr. Derek Hird, Head of Department of Languages and Cultures at Lancaster University.

Speaker bio: Sunny Xin Liu received her PhD in China’s Cultural Diplomacy from University of Central Lancashire. Her research interests lie in public diplomacy, cultural studies, media and communication, and China’s relations with the West.

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21 June 2022

Book Roundtable

Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance

Speakers:

  • Jinghan Zeng (Politics, Philosophy and Religion / Confucius Institute)
  • Leandro Soriano Marcolino (Computing and Communications)
  • Mark Lacy (Security Lancaster)
  • Yitian Zhang (Centre for International Law and Human Rights)
  • Andrew Chubb (Lancaster University China Centre)

Time: 1-2pm, 21 June 2022

Place:

Join the author of this landmark new book, Professor Jinghan Zeng, and a panel of expert discussants for a far-reaching discussion of one of the key issues spanning cutting-edge science, politics and the future of societies in the twenty-first century.

This book provides the first book-length study focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Chinese characteristics, in line with China’s open ambition of becoming an AI superpower by 2030. China’s unique domestic politics has developed distinct characteristics for its AI approach. By analysing national strategy, security and governance aspects of AI in China, this book argues that China’s AI approach is sophisticated and multifaceted, and it has brought about both considerable benefits and challenges to China. The book suggests that a more accurate understanding of AI with Chinese characteristics is essential in order to inform the debate regarding what lessons can be learnt from China’s AI approach and how to respond to China’s rise as the AI leader, if not superpower.

Speaker bio: Jinghan Zeng is Professor of China and International Studies at Lancaster University. His research focuses on China’s domestic and international politics. He is the author of Slogan Politics: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy Concepts (2020) and The Chinese Communist Party's Capacity to Rule: Ideology, Legitimacy and Party Cohesion (2015). He is also the co-editor of One Belt, One Road, One Story?: Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (2021).

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16 June 2022

Report Launch

Rights Protection: How the UK Should Respond to the PRC's Overseas Influence

Speakers:

  • Andrew Chubb (Lancaster University);
  • Eva Pils, (King's College London);
  • Yuan Yi Zhu (Oxford University);
  • Yue He Parkinson (FT中文)

Time: 530pm-7pm, 16 June 2022

Place: King's College London, Strand Campus - register here

This paper addresses challenges posed by the PRC's influence in the UK, with particular attention to threats to the political and academic freedoms of Chinese diaspora communities in the UK. It calls for policy makers to clearly differentiate between threats to national security, human rights and academic freedom, and recommends practical policy responses tailored to the specific problems. Join us for a panel discussion with the author and a diverse group of experts, to explore the key takeaways of this policy paper, and the recommendations for governments and universities. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and a networking drinks reception. The event is jointly organised with the Lau China Institute at King's College London.

Speaker bio: Dr Andrew Chubb is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Lancaster University, researching China's foreign relations, and Acting Director of the Lancaster University China Centre. He is the author of PRC Overseas Political Activities: Risk, Reaction and the Case of Australia (Routledge & Royal United Services Institute, 2021), and a member of the Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group (AFIWG), which has developed a Model Code of Conduct for universities to uphold academic freedom in the context of internationalisation of higher education. His recent articles can be found in International Security, Journal of Contemporary China, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific.

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Tuesday 14 June 2022

Research Seminar Series

Belt and Road Initiative: China’s Millennium Transformation

Speaker: Da Hsuan Feng, Hainan University

Time: 3pm-4pm (UK time), 14 June 2022

Place: Online via Teams, to join please register here.

This is a book on the Belt and Road Initiative, written from an unusual perspective – someone born in India but raised in Singapore; who has never spent a day of schooling in the Greater China but has Chinese heritage; and who eventually built a long and distinguished career in the West. The author took an off-the-beaten-path approach that asks how such an initiative, began entirely by China, can impact and transform the millennium mindset of Chinese. He argues such a transformation shall render a new definition of what a 'powerful nation' in the 21st century should be, for the betterment of humanity. This is unlike the changes made by Western civilization for many centuries since the Renaissance days. Three main outcomes of the BRI have been embedded directly or indirectly throughout the book: Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications. The author felt that these three outcomes offer possible mitigation for a world facing existential challenges in the 21st century.

Speaker bio: Da Hsuan Feng is Honorary Dean of Hainan University Belt and Road Research Institute and the Chief Advisor of China Silk Road iValley Research Institute. He grew up in Singapore and received his physics PhD from the University of Minnesota (1972). He was the M Russell Wehr Chair Professor of Drexel University. He also served as the United States National Science Foundation Program Director in Theoretical Physics for two years.

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Tuesday 24 May 2022

Research Seminar Series

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability-Led Innovation: A study of automotive joint ventures in China

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Rebecca Liu, Lancaster University

Time: 1pm-2pm, 24 May 2022

Place:

What is the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice and sustainability-led innovation in automotive joint ventures (JVs) in China? Building on neo-institutional perspective together with legitimacy, stakeholder and resource-based theories, we envisage a multiple-case study to explore the link between the practice of CSR and sustainability-led innovation in three leading automotive JVs in China - SAIC Volkswagen, Fujian Benz and BMW Brilliance.

Results suggest that Chinese automotive IJVs practice CSR with a hybridization approach in two ways: (a) managerial leadership that highlights bidirectional interaction (East vs. West; and Coordinated vs. Liberal); and (b) structural cooperation that underscores technological advancement aiming for a harmonized society. Our study sheds light in how joint venture actors with different cultures and social values, practice CSR in a cooperative manner that eventually leads to sustainability-led innovation, providing an alternative option to policymakers and managers who used to divorce CSR from business/economic objectives.

Speaker bio: Rebecca Liu is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Lancaster University Management School. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, focusing on innovation, cross-cultural study, cooperation and networking, knowledge management and learning, and SME engagement in China.

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Monday 4 April 2022

Research Seminar Series

Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China's Rise

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Lee Jones, Queen Mary University of London

Time: 1-2.30pm, 4 April 2022

Place:

  • In-person: Charles Carter A19 (Executive Suite) - lunch provided, please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
  • Available online via Teams, to join please register here.

Is China's rise a threat to international order? In Fractured China, Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri show that it depends on what one means by 'China', for China is not the monolithic, unitary actor that many assume. Forty years of state transformation – the fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of party-state apparatuses – have profoundly changed how its foreign policy is made and implemented. Today, Chinese behaviour abroad is often not the product of a coherent grand strategy, but results from a sometimes-chaotic struggle for power and resources among contending politico-business interests, within a surprisingly permissive Chinese-style regulatory state. Presenting a path-breaking new analytical framework, Jones and Hameiri transform the central debate in International Relations and provides new tools for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand and respond to twenty-first century rising powers. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in China and Southeast Asia, Fractured China includes three major case studies – the South China Sea, non-traditional security cooperation, and development financing–to demonstrate the framework's explanatory power.

Speaker bio: Lee Jones is Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London. Lee specialises in political economy and international relations, focusing on the politics of intervention, security, and governance, with a particular interest in social conflict and the transformation of states. Much of his work focuses on Southeast Asia and China.

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Tuesday 22 March 2022

Research Seminar Series

Weddings, Funerals, and Banquets: The Impact of Guanxi on Political Representation in Taiwan

*** Lunch provided! RSVP essential to: china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk ***

Speaker: Tao Wang, University of Manchester

Time: 1pm-230pm, 22 March, 2022

Place:

  • FASS A008 Meeting Room 1 (next to Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre) - lunch provided, please RSVP to china.centre@lancaster.ac.uk
  • Online via Teams, to join please register here.

“The funeral home was like his second office.” On average, a Taiwanese MP receives 31 requests a week from constituents to attend funerals. Why are voters interested in having MPs present at private funerals? Drawing on evidence from in-depth interviews and observation, this study focuses on the role of guanxi, the Chinese term for particularistic ties. Voters in a guanxi society are inclined to show off their particularistic ties with Very Important People. Since national lawmakers are figures of power, this tendency among voters keeps Taiwanese legislators exceptionally busy attending private weddings, funerals, and banquets, often at the expense of attentiveness to national policy. The study concludes that guanxi culture brings constituency focus to the fore of Taiwan’s political representation, shedding some light on the ramification of political culture on democratic consolidation.

Speaker bio: Tao Wang (PhD, University of Manchester, 2021) is Research Associate at the Manchester China Institute. His research interests lie in the fields of political culture, democratisation, and nationalism, with a focus on East Asia. His research was recently published in Foreign Affairs, Journal of Contemporary China, and World Affairs.

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Tuesday 8 March 2022

Research Seminar Series

Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in Language Campaigns in China — A Regional Comparison

Speaker: Jocelin Lingxia Zhou, Lancaster University

Time: 1pm-2pm, 8 March 2022

Place: Online via Teams, to join please register here.

In recent years, “dialect-protection” campaigns have emerged in major Chinese “dialect” speaking areas in the People's Republic of China. In more economically developed regions and individualized societies, local “dialect” speakers are more assertive and vocal about their linguistic rights and the preservation of the local language and culture. However, awareness of linguistic diversity and appreciation of the local community language can be raised through the power of mass media and consciousness-raising by celebrities, as shown in the case of Hunan. Those campaigns challenge the linguistic hegemony created by the PRC national language policy of Mandarin promotion, and foster regional varieties of Chinese language that are under pressure from the onslaught of Mandarin promotion policies, as well massive internal migration and globalization. The response of the PRC central government shows the Chinese Communist Party's negotiation with an increasingly individualistic Chinese society as a strategy to enhance its "consultative Leninism", without negating the promotion of the official language aimed at reinforcing nationalism and a homogeneous Chinese national identity. 

Speaker bio: Jocelin Lingxia Zhou is Confucius Institute Teaching Lead and Lecturer in Chinese at the Department of Languages and Cultures (DeLC) at Lancaster University. Jocelin’s research investigates language policy and campaigns in China from the perspectives of sociolinguistics and political science.