The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing. A standard QWERTY keyboard has a few dozen keys. How can Chinese—a language with tens of thousands of characters and no alphabet—be input on such a device? In The Chinese Computer, Thomas S. Mullaney sets out to […]

Switzerland will host a high-level conference on June 15-16 aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine. But Moscow has dismissed the initiative as a waste of time. And Beijing, which has strengthened its relationship with Russia, has said it will also not attend the summit. Together with the renowned expert Alexander Gabuev we will unpack the […]

China has ramped up its use of nationalistic consumer boycotts against other governments as well as foreign companies. In this talk, I discuss Beijing's mobilization of patriotic consumers as a form of informal coercion, allowing it to manage public sentiment for both domestic legitimacy and foreign policy goals. Patriotic consumer mobilization employs citizens as the […]

Ambition, or “the heart for moving upward and forward” (shangjinxin), is widely regarded as an unquestionable virtue in China. This perception of ambition, however, is relatively new for non-elite Chinese. In the talk, Xiang Biao will examine why the desire for self-improvement is causing widespread feelings of powerlessness in China, especially among youths. Underlying the […]

The Third Plenum usually sets the tone for China’s economic policies for the following five years. The high-ranking meeting should have taken place in November 2023, but was postponed several times for unknown reasons. As of now the plenum is set to take place in July. Since shortly after the end of the zero Covid […]

Chinese and African leaders will gather in Beijing during the first week of September for the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit. This year's event comes at a pivotal time for stakeholders on all sides, amid heightened great power competition, China's slowing economy, and intense challenges brought on by climate change, among other issues. […]

In 1971, Americans made two historic visits to China that would transform relations between the two countries. One was by US official Henry Kissinger; the other, earlier, visit was by the US table tennis team. Historians have pored over the transcripts of Kissinger's negotiations with Chinese leaders. However, they have overlooked how, alongside these diplomatic […]

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party will elect its new leader on September 27. This leader will become the Prime Minister and will likely call for an early election of the lower house of the legislature. With the largest opposition party also holding its leadership race, Japan's politics is entering a period of significant change. Who […]