Global China in Anxious Times – A Forum for the Academy and Public Event (Day 2)

Global China in Anxious Times – A Forum for the Academy and Public Event

February 25-26, 2022

UCI (Humanities Gateway 1030) and live stream
RSVP REQUIRED. This is a hybrid event, with in-person attendance restricted to UCI affiliates (ID card holders) ONLY (HG 1030), pandemic conditions permitting. Members of the public can join us for this conference via Zoom and live stream.

This is a crucial moment to take stock of the complex impact of the People’s Republic of China on the world order and the complicated ways in which international trends are altering life in the world’s most populous country. Climate change, human rights violations and debates, diplomatic relations, economic booms, financial crises, technological changes and, of course, pandemics – it is necessary to come to terms with the PRC when considering one these questions and many more. And the start of 2022 is a symbolically important time to reflect on the PRC and the world order, as Beijing’s relationship with the United Nations and the United States changed dramatically half a century ago. In 1971, the UN seat held by a representative sent from Taipei was given to a representative sent from Beijing, then, exactly fifty years before the date of the UCI Forum for the Academy and the Public event, Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong hold their historic peak.

With all of this in mind, reviving its annual tradition of hosting high-profile, lively two-day symposia that was put on hold last year due to COVID-19, the UCI Forum for ‘Academy and the Public chose to focus on the RPC. Global China in an Anxious Age will bring together academics from many fields (from law and various branches of the humanities to glaciology and pharmacology), as well as non-academics of all kinds (including representatives from the worlds of journalism, of technology and politics to do) to take stock of the challenges and contradictions linked to the meteoric rise of the country. We will also explore and debate the significance of the China-associated seismic shifts rocking the planet in this age of cascading and interrelated crises.

An amazing list of presenters includes:

Pallavi Aiyar,
based in Madrid where she works as deputy editor of the Globalist, covered the 2008 Beijing Games for The Hindu and has written books on China and other parts of Asia
Steve Allison,
Professor at the UCI School of Biology and Director of the Newkirk Center

Emilie Baum,
History of the UCI

Wilfred Chan,
based in New York, worked for CNN in Hong Kong while the 2014 umbrella movement was underway, and is now a contributing writer for the Nation, reporting on Asia but also the gig economy in United States

Yangyang Cheng,
Physicist and post-doctoral fellow at Yale Law School

Eileen Chow,
Director of the Cheng Shewo Institute of Chinese Journalism at Shih Shin University in Taiwan and serves on the board of the Los Angeles Review of Books

Olivier Civili,
Professor at the UCI School of Pharmacy

Pierre Frankopan,
Oxford Don and Silk Road Specialist

Jorge Guajardo,
former Mexican Ambassador to China, is a DC-based lawyer

Yang Guobin,
sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania

Isabelle Hilton,
BBC presenter, regular writer for the Guardian, former editor of OpenDemocracy and founder of a climate change NGO that focuses on China

Dalia Dassa Kaye,
political scientist formerly of RAND, is a Fellow of the Burkle Center at UCLA

David Kaye,
UCI Law

Gregory B. Lee,
directs the Chinese Studies program at St. Andrews University

Rebecca Liao,
Bay Area-based lawyer, tech company COO, and culture writer

Perry Link,
UCR Chancellorial Professor, works on Chinese culture and literature

Christine Loh,
held an environmental position with the Hong Kong government and is at UCLA

Gustavo Oliviera,
on the faculty of the Department of Global and International Studies at UCI

Rana Mitter,
Oxford don, author of a science and business book on Chinese history and BBC presenter

Maria Repnikova,
Georgia State Professor, works on China, Africa and Russia

Greg Shafer,
UCI law

Junko Terao,
Specialist of Japan, is editor of Asia for the magazine Internazionale in Rome

Isabelle Velicogna,
professor at the UCI School of Earth Sciences

Afra Wang,
UCI alum (History / FMS BA), leads a podcast in Chinese in SF

Alex Wang,
Law professor at UCLA who works on China and the environment

Jeffrey Wasserstrom
History of the UCI, co-founder of the Forum

Amy Wilentz,
UCI Literary Journalism, Director of the Forum

Judy Tzu Chun Wu,
Professor of Asian American Studies, Director of the UCI Center for Human Sciences

Hou Ying,
UCI Professor of East Asian Studies

Cindy Yu,
based in London, writes for The Spectator and hosts the magazine’s “Chinese Whispers” podcast

Li Zhang,
previously taught in Beijing, teaches at the UCI School of Social Sciences