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 […]