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Scholars, journalists, and policy makers from around the globe will be on campus March 1-2 as part of Lafayette’s “Facing the Chinese Century: Prospects and Challenges” conference.
Hosted by the College’s new Policy Studies program, the conference will focus on the transformation of China’s cities, technological infrastructure, and culture industry, which has helped bring the country to the level of a significant modern power. It will also explore the reasons why, regardless of its rising status in the world, China remains a mystery to many people. The goal of the conference is an attempt to demystify this dynamic country.
Conference registration is still open. To register, free of charge, go to the conference website, or contact Julie O’Brien at (610) 330-5921 or obrienjc@lafayette.edu.
“China-related issues have not received the attention they deserve,” says Mark Crain, chair of Policy Studies and Simon Professor of Political Economy. “We have this emerging giant that has become an economic, cultural, and military leader. It is hard to think of a more important on-going development, and we hope to elevate awareness among Lafayette students. Otherwise, they will miss out on critical challenges and opportunities.”
Two Policy Studies faculty affiliates, Paul Barclay, associate professor of history, and Nicole Crain, visiting professor of economics and business, have contributed to planning the program and will serve as panel moderators.
The conference format will consist of five panels of world renowned experts on Chinese affairs speaking on topics ranging from East Asian security to China’s demographic shifts.
“This conference reflects the broad depth of the Policy Studies program. It is becoming increasingly important to analyze policy from an interdisciplinary approach. Analyzing and understanding China, for example, relies on tools from history, economics, political science and law, and the sciences. This is exactly the approach embodied in the policy studies major” he says. “Lafayette is reaching across disciplines, pursuing the highest levels of academic excellence.”
From a global perspective, Crain hopes the conference will show potential faculty and students that the College is not only interested, but actively engaged, in what is happening in China and East Asia.
The conference’s opening lecture, “China’s Past: A Harbinger of Its Future?” will be presented by Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, 7 p.m. March 1 in Colton Chapel. Spence is a preeminent scholar of Chinese history having published more than a dozen books on the subject. A book signing and reception will follow the lecture at 8:30 p.m.
On March 2, other speakers will lecture and lead discussions throughout the day in the Marlo Room of Farinon College Center. These include: Hu Zhaoming, counselor at the Chinese Embassy in the United States; Yoshihide Soeya, professor of political science and international relations at Keio University in Japan; John Pomfret, Los Angeles Bureau Chief for The Washington Post; andSusan Greenhalgh, professor of anthropology at University of California, Irvine.
Other distinguished scholars will also serve as panel moderators, Edward Chen, President of Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and Cheng Li, William R. Kenan Professor of Government at Hamilton College and Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution.
The conference is made possible by a gift from J. Peter Simon ’75, Lafayette trustee. Marilyn Kann, reference librarian and conference coordinator, began planning the program in June 2006.
Conference schedule:
Thursday, March1, Colton Chapel
Friday, March 2, Marlo Room
Jonathan Spence teaches in the field of Chinese history from around 1600 to the present, and on Western images of China since the middle ages. His books include The Death of Woman Wang (1978); The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984); The Question of Hu (1987); Chinese Roundabout: Essays on History and Culture; The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980; The Chan’s Great Continent: China in Western Minds; and God’s Chinese Son (1994).
His many honors include the William C. DeVane Medal of the Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1978; the Los Angeles Times History Prize in 1982; and the Vursel Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1983. Spence was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. He was a MacArthur Fellow in 1988 and that year was appointed to the Council of Scholars at the Library of Congress. In June 2001 he was made a Companion of the Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, an honor given by the Queen of England for outstanding achievement.
A native of England, Spence holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale and a B.A. from Cambridge University. He began teaching at Yale in 1965.
Prior to his work at the Chinese Embassy in the United States, Hu Zhaoming served as Deputy Director and Director of the Asian Department in the Foreign Ministry of China. He worked on regional security issues, mainly on the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) and on China-ASEAN relations and East Asia cooperation. From 1995-1998, He was the Third and Second Secretary to the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations. He was in charge of political issues of the General Assembly and the reform of the United Nations, including of the Security Council. He was the host of the “Focal Report” on Chinese Central Television from 1994-1995. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in International Relations from Beijing University.
Yoshihide Soeya is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Law, Keio University. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry. His areas of interest are politics and security in the Asia- Pacific region and Japan’s external relations. He was also Academic Assistant at the Institute of International Relations, Sophia University and a Researcher at the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS).
His publications in English include Japan’s Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945-1978, (1998); “Japan’s Relations with China,” in The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle; “The China Factor in the U.S.-Japan Alliance: The Myth of a China Threat,” Journal of East Asian Studies, and “Taiwan in Japan’s Security Considerations,” China Quarterly. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
John Pomfret is an award-winning journalist with The Washington Post. He has been a foreign correspondent for fifteen years, covering wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. Pomfret has spent seven years covering China – one in the late 1980s during the Tiananmen Square protests and then from 1998 until the end of 2003 as the bureau chief for The Washington Post in Beijing. Pomfret speaks, reads, and writes Mandarin, having spent two years at Nanjing University in the early 1980s as part of one of the first groups of American students to study in China. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia by the Asia Society. Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China is his first book.
Susan Greenhalgh’s work involves the emergence of a politics of life in the People’s Republic of China, in particular the creation and broad social, political, and bodily effects of the one-child policy. She is the author of several influential works, including Governing China’s Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics (2005) and Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain (2001). Her book The Origins of China’s One-child Policy: An Ethnography of Science- and Policy-Making in Deng’s China is forthcoming from the University of California Press this year.