GIGA China Series

The GIGA China Series aims to foster a community of knowledge seekers interested in unravelling the complexities of China’s politics, society, and global impact. Speakers will present their current research findings on today’s China, ranging from domestic governance and societal trends to geopolitics and international relations.

Consistent with the GIGA’s global approach, we strive to present research combining in-depth area expertise with comparative analytical lenses and global perspectives, drawing from the theoretical and methodological resources of diverse fields such as Political Science, Anthropology, Religious Studies, and Philosophy, and hailing from different regional scholarly traditions and communities around the world. During the talks, the speakers will present their research and afterwards the audience can comment on this.

Organisers: Dr. Sinan Chu Dr. Esther Song Askan Weidemann Dr. Sebastian Biba

China Watchers

Wednesday, 30 October 2024 | 2:00–3:15 p.m. (CET) | Online

When Western audiences try to understand politics in the People’s Republic of China, they often turn to China specialists to help them understand a regime that appears increasingly opaque and inaccessible. But just who are those “China Watchers”? How do they arrive at their conclusions, and should we be worried about biases in this community? We establish a global list of experts on contemporary Chinese politics through a snowballing nomination process. Examining the over 2,200 China Watchers nominated so far, we find that they tend to nominate experts living in the same country and thus form local sub-communities based on geographic location, but that there are nevertheless enough connections across countries and continents that one can call this a global expert community. We also find that US-based and -educated male academics still form the core of this community, but that younger cohorts are more diverse in terms of educational background, gender, and geographic work location. Examining the China-related conversations of those experts on Twitter, we find that they influence each other’s assessments and topics of interest, but the path of influence varies.

Speaker: Franziska Barbara Keller is a Political Scientist interested in social networks and authoritarian regimes, particularly the People’s Republic of China. She received her PhD from New York University, was an assistant professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and is now an advanced PostDoc at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern (icmb). She has studied patronage networks among Chinese political elites and hidden influence campaigns on X/Twitter. In her current research, she examines how our knowledge of authoritarian regimes is generated, and what role the social networks of China and Russia experts play in that process.

Moderator: Dr. Esther Song is an Associate Professor at the Department of Government at the University of Bergen and an Associate at the GIGA Institute for Asian Studies.

Redefining Hong Kong Identity: The Impact of the National Security Law from Governmental and Grassroots Perspectives

Tuesday, 1 October 2024 | 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. (CEST) | Online

Since its introduction in June 2020, the National Security Law (NSL) has attracted considerable attention from scholars studying law, human rights, education, media, and the political and judiciary systems in Hong Kong. However, the question of how the NSL affects Hong Kong identity remains largely unexplored. This talk aims to address this research gap by discussing how the NSL has affected Hong Kong identity and how it can be defined and practiced in today’s Hong Kong. The talk is based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2021-2023 in Hong Kong. It draws on over 60 interviews with Hongkongers in Hong Kong and Taiwan, participant observation research, and photo voice exercises.  

The talk is divided into three parts. It will firstly discuss the strategies employed by the Hong Kong government to formulate a specific vision of Hong Kong identity in the post-colonial era from 1997 to 2020, and how these strategies have changed since the introduction of the NSL. Secondly, it will examine how ordinary Hongkongers are navigating these socio-political transformations and whether and how they can continue to define and foster Hong Kong identity on their own. Finally, the presentation will address the apparent schism between top-down institutional and bottom-up grassroots identity formation processes. In doing so, a tentative new conceptualization will be proposed of Hong Kong identity as ‘just another Chinese city’ with its implications for Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China discussed. 

Speaker:  Mariusz Bogacki is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. In his doctoral thesis, he is investigating the effect of the National Security Law on Hong Kong identity. His broader research interests span identity politics, Hong Kong studies, international relations, and qualitative methodologies. He has held Visiting Researcher positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of California, Berkeley, and Goethe University Frankfurt. Prior to his PhD, he was a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, studying the identity formation of European Union migrants in post-Brexit Scotland. 

Moderator:  Askan Weidemann is a Doctoral Researcher at the GIGA.

Navigating Post-Pandemic Fieldwork in China: Challenges, Adaptations, and Insights

Monday, 22 July 2024 | 11.00 a.m.–12.15 p.m. (CEST) | At the GIGA, Neuer Jungfernstieg 21 in Hamburg, Room 531 and online

Following an extended period of closure due to COVID-19 restrictions, the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in China has been reinstated. However, this reopening has been met with a degree of apprehension within the realm of Chinese Studies, as researchers are questioning the scope and nature of viable research. This presentation, predicated on fieldwork on social governance discourses in China conducted in Beijing from November 2023 to February 2024, offers an exploration of the potential dynamics of fieldwork in Beijing's academia in the post-pandemic context. Key questions to be addressed include the transformation in the perceived sensitivity surrounding research topics, the implications of one’s status as a foreign researcher on fieldwork execution in China, and the challenges encountered during the research process. Furthermore, the presentation will offer some preliminary strategies to navigate these obstacles. The insights gleaned from this experience aim to provide guidance and preparation for scholars embarking on future fieldwork endeavors in China.

Speaker: Philipp C. D. Immel is a Research Assistant with teaching responsibilities at the Chair of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Würzburg. His doctoral thesis focuses on the social governance discourses in China, examining how power relations are shifted between the overseeing agent and subjects of the system, how they are shifted between the subjects themselves, and how localities interpret and implement the top-level directives in concrete terms.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies and Chinese from the University of Bonn and a Master of Arts in Chinese Studies (Distinction) from the University of Würzburg. From 2014 to 2015, he studied at Jilin University in Changchun and during the winter semester 2017/18 at Peking University. After graduating, he spent the summer semester of 2019 at Sophia University in Tokyo. From November 2023 to February 2024, he stayed at Peking University's Law School as an International Visiting Scholar under the guidance of Prof. DAI Xin.

His research is funded by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and the Marianne Plehn Program (Elite Network of Bavaria). Since 2021, he serves as an elected board member of the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA) and has been a member of the Association for Social Science Research on China (ASC) within the DGA since 2019. Additionally, he is a member of the DLR_Graduate_Program at the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Moderator: Askan Weidemann is a Doctoral Researcher at the GIGA.

The Paradigm Shift in EU-China Relations: Understanding the EU’s Current Strategy Towards China

Thursday, 11 July 2024 | 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. (CEST) | Online

This session explores the ‘paradigm-shift’ in EU-China relations, focusing on the 'de-risking' strategy in response to China's growing influence and changing global dynamics. The session examines how the EU has navigated deteriorating US-China relations over the past decade, highlighting the evolution from economic collaboration in the 1990s to the current tensions driven by China's assertive foreign policy under Xi Jinping. The session delves into the roots of this paradigm shift, tracing China's evolving self-perception and its implications for global power dynamics. The EU maintains a “tripartite” strategy, originally outlined in its 2019 Strategic Outlook, seeing China as a “partner”, but also as an economic “competitor” and a “systemic rival”. China’s former State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has described the European approach as suffering from “cognitive dissonance”. As a result, and as demonstrated by the failure of the 2022 EU-China Summit, the two parties are now operating within two different frameworks, and constructive cooperation has become increasingly difficult. This session aims to contribute to a functional conceptualisation of the shift in the relationship and on ways in which the EU and China can work with each other to tackle global issues.

Speaker: Alice Politi is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at King’s College London. She is also an Eisenhower Defense Fellow at the NATO Defense College and a Policy Advisor at the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Her doctoral research focuses on EU-China relations during the presidency of Xi Jinping, with a focus on China’s Belt and Road Initiative. More broadly, her research concentrates on China’s geopolitical behavior and foreign policy under Xi Jinping. Alice has previously collaborated as a Policy Consultant with the UK FCDO and participated in projects with the European Commission and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Moderation: Dr. Sebastian Biba is Research Fellow at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.

Australia-China Relations after the Economic Coercion Campaign

Thursday, 13 June 2024 | 2:30–3:45 p.m. (CEST)

With diplomatic contact between Australia and China returning to its regular rhythm, Beijing is also dismantling the last of its politically motivated trade restrictions. How did the Australian government and the country’s exporters navigate this four-year-long campaign of economic coercion? What, if anything, can other countries learn from the Australian experience? And what’s the outlook for Australia-China relations? This presentation will also explore how deep economic interdependence between Australia and China has created sources of leverage and vulnerability for both countries, while also considering how these sources of leverage and vulnerability might be weaponised in conflict scenarios, including Taiwan Strait contingencies.

Speaker Dr. Benjamin Herscovitch is a Research Fellow in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University (ANU). His primary areas of research are Australia–China relations and China’s statecraft. He is the author of Beijing to Canberra and Back, a fortnightly newsletter chronicling Australia–China relations. Prior to joining the ANU, he was an analyst and policy officer in the Department of Defence, specialising in China’s external policy and Australia’s defence diplomacy. He was previously a researcher for Beijing-based think tanks and consultancies.

Moderation: Dr. Sebastian Biba is Research Fellow at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt.

Meanings of Zero: China’s Zero-COVID Policy

Friday, 31 May 2024 | 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. (CEST)

China’s “zero-COVID policy” (qingling zhengce), the most radical public health measure during the COVID pandemic, has been the focal point of public debates but surprisingly understudied. How did the policy start? What exactly did “zero-COVID” ("qingling”) mean? When did the policy acquire the name “qingling”? What were the political and symbolic implications of the word “zero”? Why did the Chinese state choose it over other options? How did the policy change during the pandemic? Why did the state stubbornly insist on the zero goal in 2022 when it became unpopular among experts and the public and even endangered the state’s legitimacy due to its economic and social impacts? Xu’s research answers these questions by examining the state’s schema, policy paradigm, and frame and how these cultural/ideational factors are intertwined with the autocratic institution in policy processes.

Speaker: Bin Xu, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Emory University and a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2023–2024. His research interests are the intersection between politics and culture, including civil society, collective memory, symbolic politics, and disaster. He is the author of The Culture of Democracy: A Sociological Approach to Civil Society (Polity 2022), Chairman Mao’s Children: Generation and the Politics of Memory in China (Cambridge 2021), and The Politics of Compassion: the Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China (Stanford 2017). His articles have appeared in leading journals in sociology and China studies. He is currently working on two book projects: one is about mourning and memorialization of the COVID pandemic, and the other about disaster politics in China.

Moderator: Dr. Sinan Chu is a Research Fellow at the GIGA.

External Support, Internal Strength, and the Strategy of Minority Repression in Mao's China

Friday, 22 March 2024 | 11:00 a.m.‒12:15 noon (CET)

Why do states, when facing ethnic separatist threats, sometimes opt for settler colonization while other times use extreme violence like genocide? Existing theories offer limited insights into variations in repressive choices. We propose that external support and a minority’s separation potential influence state choices. If external powers support a domestic minority group with weak insurgency capabilities, states favor a gradual approach, like internal colonization, to solidify control over minority-concentrated territories. However, when a minority group has strong insurgent capabilities and receives external support, the secession threat intensifies. This urgency pushes states towards immediate, drastic measures like genocide for territorial control. We examine our theory using original county-level personnel and demographic data of China's minority-concentrated regions. Findings based on an analysis of China’s settler colonization and state violence from 1964 to 1982 support our theoretical arguments. Our findings shed new light on China's nation-building, state repression, and ethnic politics of the Mao era.

Speaker: Dr. Chuyu Liu is an assistant professor in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on ethnic conflict, the political economy of development, and East Asian security. His current research examines the political economy of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. His work has appeared in Energy Policy, Environmental Politics, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Comparative Economics, the Journal of East Asian Studies, Security Studies, and The China Review.

Moderation: Dr. Sinan Chu is a Research Fellow at the GIGA.

Xinjiang in Central Asia: Trade, Refugees, Loans, and Propaganda Across the Former Sino-Soviet Border

Tuesday, 30 January 2024 | 11:00 a.m.‒12:15 p.m. (CET)

The rising influence of China on Central Asia has long been recognized. But in the last years the impact of Chinese policies in the region directly bordering Central Asia, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, has become particularly significant in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Based on fieldwork in Central Asia 2021-2023, this talk traces these cross-border connections including shifts in trade patterns, the impact of testimonies of survivors from Xinjiang’s re-education camps, propaganda efforts, state violence against activists, and the recent agreements on visa-free travel between China and Central Asia.

Speaker: Dr. Rune Steenberg is a Senior Researcher at Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. As an anthropologist, Dr. Steenberg specializes in Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, and has researched and published extensively on kinship, economy, narratives, and mass incarceration. His works can be found in journals such as Critical Asian Studies, Central Asian Survey, and Asian Ethnicity, as well as edited volumes such as Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands and Xinjiang in the Context of Central Eurasian Transformations. In recent years, he has also worked as a Uyghur interpreter for asylum seekers, activists, journalists, and human rights organizations. He is currently a principal investigator of the EU-funded project "Remote Ethnography of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region".

Moderation: Dr. Sinan Chu is a Research Fellow at the GIGA.

Cultivating a Good Muslim: Islamic Education, State-Building, and the Making of Chinese Muslims

Monday, 18 December 2023 | 3:00‒4:15 p.m. (CET)

This talk explores the multifaceted role of Islamic education as a tool for collective-identity construction within the context of China’s nation-building efforts, with a specific focus on the Hui Muslim community. Recognising the imperative of a shared national identity, the talk presents the ways in which the Chinese state strategically employs Islamic education to shape and mould its “good citizens” among the Hui Muslims. The investigation begins with a concise historical overview, unravelling the circumstances that gave rise to Islamic education in China and its initial trajectory. The talk then traces the evolution of Islamic education from its inception to contemporary times in China, detailing the historical and sociopolitical factors that influenced its growth there. Through a nuanced analysis, the study scrutinises how the Chinese state leverages Islamic education to align religious teachings with the overarching objectives of nation-building. This involves an examination of educational policies, curriculum structures, and institutional frameworks designed to nurture the harmonious co-existence of Islamic values with the broader narrative of Chinese identity. Furthermore, the talk focuses on the transformative phase of modern reforms in Islamic education, exploring the ways in which these reforms align with the broader goals of the Chinese state in shaping a cohesive national identity. It investigates the interplay between tradition and modernity in the context of Islamic education, shedding light on how the state navigates the preservation of cultural and religious heritage while fostering a sense of allegiance to the Chinese nation.

By adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines historical analysis, educational policy studies, and sociological perspectives, the talk contributes to a nuanced understanding of the dynamic relationship between Islamic education, state-building, and the construction of a distinct Chinese Muslim identity. It provides insight into the complexities of cultural and religious integration within the fabric of a rapidly evolving Chinese society.

Speaker: Dr. Gang Li is a Research Associate at the Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE), FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Moderation: Dr. Sinan Chu is a Research Fellow at the GIGA.