Category: Uncategorized

By Professor Xi Wang

Though the academic job market in humanities continues to be highly competitive, East Asian universities offer exciting opportunities for scholarly development and diverse academic pathways. We invite you to join an online discussion with three early-career scholars with experience in academic positions across East Asia, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. Drawing from their experiences, our speakers will share insights on key aspects of academic career development in East Asia, including job application procedures and strategies, adapting to East Asian university systems, and building professional networks in different East Asian cities. This workshop aims to provide practical guidance for those interested in pursuing academic careers in East Asia. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Yi Ren

Our speakers:

Dr. Lin Du will join as an Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the Departments of Chinese Studies and Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore in July this year. She completed her PhD at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. Lin holds an MA from the Regional Studies East Asia Program at Harvard University and a BA in Chinese Language and Literature from Peking University. Her pioneering work in machine learning has been published in the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), and her contributions to humanities research are forthcoming in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas and Asia Pacific Perspectives.

Dr. Zifeng Liu is an Assistant Professor of History in the Academy of Chinese, History, Religion and Philosophy at Hong Kong Baptist University. He received his PhD in Africana Studies from Cornell University and spent two years in the African Research Center at the Pennsylvania State University as a postdoctoral scholar. He is an intellectual historian of the twentieth-century Africana world with specializations in Black internationalism, anticolonial thought, and Afro-Asian solidarity. His current book project traces a history of African and African diaspora women radicals’ engagements with China in the age of Bandung.

Dr. Yu Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Toronto in 2019. Starting in 2020, he had worked at the University of Macau first as a post-doctoral fellow and then as a research assistant professor before moving to Cornell. His current book project, All Ears: Listening to Radio in China, 1940–1976, explores the dynamics of technopolitics in the Mao era, namely how loudspeakers changed the structure of information flow, the making of socialist subjects, urban and rural landscapes, and the formation of political culture in the early PRC period. 

Speakers: Dr. Zachary Hershey, Dr. Ignatius G.D Suglo, Dr. Hong Zhang

Moderator: Dr. Yi Ren

When: June 10, 2025, 19:00-21:00 PM EST

Where: Zoom, please register in advance at https://ualr-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/vATvmdp2RSeuLzVzfOreDA

Dear Colleagues,

In today’s challenging academic job market, early-career scholars often move through a series of temporary positions before securing tenure-track roles. During these temporary academic appointments, how should we develop research and plan publications, diversify our teaching portfolios and grow pedagogically, build professional networks and seek mentorship opportunities, and maintain work-life balance? In the upcoming CHUS Engagement online workshop, we are inviting three academics who have effectively leveraged postdoctoral fellowships and visiting assistant professorships as stepping stones to tenure-track appointments. They will offer first-hand experiences and actionable advice for turning these interim roles into meaningful career advancement opportunities.

Sincerely,

Yi Ren

Our speakers:

Dr. Zachary Hersey will join the Department of History at William & Mary as an Assistant Professor this fall, where he currently serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor. He is an environmental and legal historian of middle-period (c. 800-1300) East and Inner Asia with a focus on the intersection of agricultural and pastoral activities in North China. He is now working on a book project on the environmental and ethnic dynamics of Liao-era North China. Before joining William & Mary, he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Kenyon College from 2022 to 2024. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021 in East Asian Languages and Civilizations.

Dr. Ignatius G.D. Suglo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies at University of Richmond. He is a media and cultural historian and a scholar of global media whose research interests straddle two sets of intersecting fields. The first puts media and communication studies in conversation with Afro-Asian studies. This strand of research engages with the African presence in Chinese media from the 19th century to the present and their role in knowledge production, circulation, and worldmaking. The second is at the intersection of media histories and critical digital media. This strand of research examines histories of digital media and how older and newer forms of media coexist in hybrid media ecologies in multiple contexts including social movements and archiving practices. Prior to joining the University of Richmond, Ignatius was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong in 2022. His writing has appeared in leading journals including Media, Culture & Society, Journal of Asian and African Studies, and Verge: Studies in Global Asias.

Dr. Hong Zhang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University Bloomington. Her research focuses on China’s role in global development, with an emphasis on infrastructure and industrialization. She examines how China’s development trajectory, domestic institutions, and structural position in the global economy shape its international development engagements, and how China may be reshaping global development governance. Before joining IU, she was a China Public Policy Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation in 2022-24. Prior to that, she held concurrent Postdoctoral Fellowships at the China Africa Research Initiative, Johns Hopkins University-School of Advanced International Studies, and at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program in 2021-22. She received a PhD from George Mason University in 2021.

Saturday, January 10, 2026: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Marshfield Room (Palmer House Hilton, Third Floor)

Session Organizer: Luming Xu, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Chair: Brian James DeMare, Tulane University
Papers:
Measuring the Land for Our Nation: Land Ownership, Agricultural Migration, and Nationality Policy in Manchurian Borderland, 1912–44
Luming Xu, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

“Each Person Has One Name Only”: State Regulation of Personal Names in Republican China, 1936–49
Xiaoyan Ren, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Luxury, Privilege, and Legitimacy: Consumption of Imported Goods from the Capitalist World in Maoist China’s Friendship Stores, 1958–78
Zhen Zhang, University of Edinburgh

Animals, Products, and State Building: China’s Sheep Improvement Project and Wool Trade in the Early 20th Century
Guanran Cui, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Comment: Brian James DeMare, Tulane University

Session Abstract:

Private property and its regulation are intricately interwoven with the process of state building in 20th-century Chinese history. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s interpretation of sovereignty as the threshold between “state of exception” and “legal order” that blurs the two into a “zone of indistinction”, this panel proposes to situate state building between the fluidity of ideas, commodities, peoples, and the integration of rights, classes, and nation for reexamination. Through the lenses of modern Chinese governments’ private property management and corresponding legislation agendas, this dialectical dynamic of state building and the development of right reveals itself most manifestly. The history of the modern Chinese state is a collaborative structure centered on the idea of rights, and our panel gathers four studies focusing on different aspects of property rights in modern Chinese society across the twentieth century to support this argument. Guanran Cui’s paper captures sheep and wool as biological resources that were incorporated into China’s modernization agenda and wartime economy in the early twentieth century. Xiaoyan Ren’s paper explores the standardization and regulation of personal name usage through ROC’s legislation from 1936 to 1949. It argues that the primary motivation for restricting individuals to a single official name stemmed from the need to regulate economic activities and, specifically, to implement a modern income-based taxation system. Luming Xu’s paper focuses on the transformation of land policy and migration management in Manchuria from 1912 to 1945, examining its relationship with the ROC’s, Japan’s, and Manchukuo’s nationality policies, through the lens of the coloniality of the nation. Zhen Zhang’s paper investigates the state’s operations of the privileged economy in the early PRC era. It takes the Friendship Store system where the privileged few accesses imported luxury goods as a representative case. By situating these practices within broader debates on property rights and privilege, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the contradictions inherent in Maoist China’s socio-economic policies. Juxtaposed together, this panel reveals that civil rights, a concept that originated from ideas of private property, and state building are co-constituted and mutually irreducible from each other. In modern states, when every individual is supposed to be a citizen of the state, they receive individual liberties that are represented by rights but at the same time permanently confined within the sphere of sovereign power.

Paper Abstracts:

Measuring the Land for Our Nation: Land Ownership, Agricultural Migration, and Nationality Policy in Manchurian Borderland, 1912-1944

Luming Xu, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Abstract: This study focuses on China’s and Japan’s land measurement projects (Ch. tudi qingzhang, 土地清丈, Jp. chiseki seiri, 地籍整理) in early 20-century Manchuria, historically a borderland region between China and the Japanese empire, and argues that these projects were efforts of transforming the “underdeveloped frontier” into “fixed borderland”. Through the lenses of global capitalist competitions and international legal framework, land has become both the capital of nations and an integral part of “rights” and “citizenship”, both Chinese and Japanese authorities in Manchuria were fixated on the issues of land ownership (Ch. tudi suoyou quan, 土地所有權, Jp. tochi shōso ken, 土地商租権) and nationalities (Ch. guoji, Jp. kokuseki, 国籍) throughout the history of their competitions in the early twentieth century. Meanwhile, these projects were intimately intertwined with the nation building processes of both China and Japan during that time, which formed a homogenization structure for the people, especially for the indigenous people of Manchuria and Korean migrants who could not fit into either Chinese or Japanese nation seamlessly.

“Each Person Has One Name Only”:  State Regulation of Personal Names in Republican China, 1936-1949

Xiaoyan Ren, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

This paper explores the Nationalist state’s regulation of personal names in Republican China, focusing on the transition from the customary practice of one individual having multiple names to the legal requirement of a single name per individual. Central to this study is the Regulations on the Restriction of Name Usage (姓名使用限制条例), a pivotal legal code implemented by the Nationalist government to standardize naming practice. This paper traces the trajectory of this regulation, from its initial proposal in 1936 and subsequent rejection in June 1937 to its formal enactment in 1941 and amendment in 1948. I argue that the primary impetus for enforcing name standardization originated from the financial sector, as the modernization of the capitalist market and taxation systems necessitated stable, individualized identification. By examining the history of name restriction in Republican China, this paper offers a novel perspective on the development of capitalism in China, particularly the transformation of the fundamental unit of private property from households and lineage to individual citizens.

Luxury, Privilege, and Legitimacy: Consumption of Imported Goods from the Capitalist World in Maoist China’s Friendship Stores, 1958-1978

Zhen Zhang, University of Edinburgh

This presentation concentrates on the ideological and legal complexities relevant to the consumption of imported luxury goods in Maoist China. It analyzes the role and function of Friendship Stores as exclusive spaces of privilege. In a Maoist socialist society that officially repudiated private property and commodification, all goods distributed under the state-run supply system were deemed collective labor products. Individuals possessed only usage and consumption rights, devoid of ownership. Yet, Friendship Stores allowed elite consumers holding foreign exchange vouchers to purchase restricted items from capitalist countries, challenging the regime’s commitment to egalitarianism and communist morality. In this context, this presentation discusses how the Chinese Communist Party justified such practices within its ideological framework and legal discourse, and how ordinary citizens reconciled these visible inequalities with the state’s narrative of socialist equality. By situating these practices within broader debates on property rights and privilege, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the contradictions inherent in Maoist China’s socio-economic policies.

Animals, Products, and State Building: China’s Sheep Improvement Project and Wool Trade in the Early 20th Century

Guanran Cui, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Abstract: This study demonstrates how sheep and wool were incorporated as biological resources into Chinese state-building from the late 1910s through the 1940s in North and Northwest China.

Beginning with local attempts on improving China’s sheep breeds and wool production, pre-WWII rhetoric and policy responding to deterioration of economy engendered both provincial and private corporations to specialize and “modernize” sheep husbandry. Traditional individual husbandry adapting to social and environmental heterogeneity was considered backward and needed to be replaced by new high-productive breeds and standardized management. The transnational agricultural network and nationwide discourse of productive enterprises facilitated the replacement and official corporations’ gradual expansion in sheep and wool trade. The Second Sino-Japanese War terminated the multi-actor dynamics and stimulated the national investment in husbandry in free northwestern provinces and bloom of Chinese dirigisme on wool trade, which was a strategic deployment to compete with Japanese puppet dirigisme on Inner Mongolian wool and secure resources aiding the war. This study shows how state building works as a complex of economic and biological powers and in a broader context complicates the understanding of interaction between state and property.

Friday, January 9, 2026: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Madison Room (Palmer House Hilton, Third Floor)

Session organizer: Mao Lin, Georgia Southern University

Chair: Yi Sun, University of San Diego

Papers:

“Bamboo Diplomacy”: Between Beijing and Hanoi
Xiaobing Li, University of Central Oklahoma

Cooperation or Confrontation: New Era in Sino–Indian Relations
Xiaoxiao Li, University of Central Oklahoma

From Recovering China to Seeking Independence: China–Taiwan Relations in the Xi EraQiang Fang, University of Minnesota, Duluth

A New World Order? The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Xi’s China
Mao Lin, Georgia Southern University

Comment: Yi Sun, University of San Diego

Session Abstract:

This panel provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolving landscape of China’s foreign relations under Xi Jinping, with a particular focus on its interactions with key neighbors, including India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Russia, and countries in Central Asia. As Xi’s leadership has fundamentally shaped China’s approach to regional diplomacy, understanding these dynamics is crucial to assessing China’s broader foreign policy goals.

One notable case is the relationship between China and Vietnam, explored in the presentation titled “’Bamboo Diplomacy’ between Beijing and Hanoi” by Dr. Xiaobing Li. During Xi Jinping’s third term, Vietnam has carefully balanced its relations with China while strengthening ties with the United States and Japan. In 2023, the U.S. and Vietnam elevated their partnership, while Vietnam also secured Official Security Assistance with Japan. Xi’s December 2023 visit to Vietnam aimed to maintain influence, especially on issues like Taiwan’s independence and South China Sea disputes. Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” seeks to preserve independence while engaging with Beijing.

Dr. Xiaoxiao Li’s paper explores the shifting Sino-Indian relations, particularly since the U.S. pivot to the Indo-Pacific under the Obama administration. While Xi Jinping has made efforts to stabilize ties with India through personal visits and multilateral engagement, tensions have intensified, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these challenges, China continues to pursue opportunities for mutual benefit, while seeking to maintain influence in the region.

Dr. Qiang Fang’s paper focuses on the issue of Taiwan. Regarding Taiwan, Xi Jinping has faced increasing resistance from Taiwan, where a sense of national identity and desire for independence has grown stronger. The DPP’s policies under Xi’s leadership have become more assertive, leading China to adopt more aggressive political, military, and diplomatic strategies, which have strained relations with Taiwan, the U.S., and Japan.

Finally, Dr. Mao Lin’s paper examines how the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has emerged as a key instrument in Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, expanding its role under his leadership to promote regional security and economic cooperation, particularly in Central Asia. By leveraging the SCO, Xi has positioned China as a central actor in addressing regional challenges while emphasizing the importance of collective security and non-interference, although internal challenges, such as Russia’s efforts to counterbalance China, remain significant.

Through these case studies, the panel sheds light on the complexities of China’s foreign relations under Xi Jinping and offers insights into the ongoing shifts and continuities in China’s regional strategies. (396 words)

Individual Paper Abstracts:

“Bamboo Diplomacy:” between Beijing and Hanoi

Xiaobing Li, University of Central Oklahoma

During Xi Jinping’s third term, Vietnam maintained a diplomatic balance and keep a distance with China. Hanoi continued to strengthen its relations with the United States when Biden visited Vietnam and established a strategic partnership in September 2023. Then, Vietnamese President Thuong visited Japan in November and agreed on Official Security Assistance (OSA). For Hanoi, a strong relationship with the US and Japan could be a check on Beijing. In December 2023, Xi visited Vietnam.

This paper explains why Xi Jinping made his third visit to Hanoi and how China kept Vietnam on its side regarding the “One China” policy, Taiwan’s independence, and disputed islands in the South China Sea to assess the recent position of China’s Vietnam policy. It also examines some historical problems left behind by Deng Xiaoping after his invasion of Vietnam in 1979, Jiang Zemin’s resolution of outstanding disputes between the two countries in 2002, and Hu Jintao’s land borders demarcation agreement in 2009. Xi faces a traditional resistance from Hanoi, which tries to maintain its independence and autonomy by curbing Beijing’s influence and control through its own flexible “bamboo diplomacy.”

Cooperation or Confrontation: New Era in Sino-Indian Relations

Xiaoxiao Li, University of Central Oklahoma

Chinese has a long lasting saying that “A distant relative is not as good as a close neighbor”. There are so many similar aspects in both China and India that reflect the necessary need for cooperative and strengthened relations. But ever since the U.S. began to turn its focus on the Indo-Pacific pivot from Obama administration, the tension between China and India intensified simultaneously.  China and its leader tried hard to stabilize the Sino-Indian relations through the CCP leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to India in 2014, the military meetings over the border disputes, the negotiations under the framework of multilateral organizations such as BRICS Summit, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, Asean, G20, COP29, etc. Sino-Indian relations have experienced turbulent ups and downs, especially during the US Biden administration during and after the Covid-19 Pandemic. This article focuses on the efforts from China side as how to figure out a way that is mutually beneficial and why China makes such move from a historical perspective.

From Recovering China to Seeking Independence: China-Taiwan Relations in the Xi Era

Qiang Fang, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Since Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war and fled to Taiwan Island in 1949, the China-Taiwan relations have generally experienced three phases. From 1949 to Chiang’s death in 1975, the Taiwan Strait was filled with tensions as Chiang Kai-shek continued to attempt to recover mainland China with force (fangong dalu). To deter Chiang’s ambition, Mao and the CCP bombarded Jinmen Island twice in the 1950s. The second phase is Taiwan under the rule of Chiang Ching-kuo, especially after GMD delegates were evicted from the Unite Nation and US formally recognized the PRC. While Chiang Ching-kuo never gave up his father’s plan to recover mainland China, he became more practical by appointing native Taiwanese in the government including his vice president. The third phase began in the late 1980s. Taiwan in most of this period has been ruled by native Taiwanese DPP who, unlike the Chiangs has no interest recovering China. All they want is Taiwan’s gradual independence. To attain that goal, the DPP has highlighted Taiwan’s uniqueness such as its democracy, high-tech companies, and quality health insurance. Under Xi Jinping, to counter Taiwan’s determined drifting out of China’s orbit,  the CCP has adopted more aggressive political, military, and diplomatic policies to deal with Taiwan, which increasingly strains China’s relations with Taiwan, the U.S. and Japan.

A New World Order? The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Xi’s China

Mao Lin, Georgia Southern University

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), under Xi Jinping’s leadership, has evolved into a significant multilateral platform for promoting regional security, economic cooperation, and political stability. This essay explores the transformation of the SCO during Xi’s tenure, highlighting his strategic vision for the organization. Since assuming power in 2012, Xi Jinping has focused on strengthening SCO’s role in addressing regional and global challenges, particularly in Central Asia. Through his leadership, the SCO has broadened its scope to include more member states and promote economic integration through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

More importantly, the SCO has challenged the rules and norms of the US-led world order by emphasizing the importance of combating terrorism, extremism, and separatism, Within the SCO, Beijing has emphasized the so-called “Shanghai Spirit,” promoting mutual respect, non-interference, and collective security, while balancing China’s growing influence with the need for consensus-based decision-making. While Xi has sought to position China as a key driver of the SCO, the SCO also faces seriously internal challenges, especially Russia’s effort of bring India into the organization to counterbalance China’s influence.