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Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - 19:30

Decentralization of power in China: a failure?

Dr Susan Shirk Director of 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego

Less than 4 years after Mao Zedong’s death, Deng Xiaoping wrote an important essay and declared that China needed to move away from an “overconcentration of power” by an individual leader to establish a more institutionalized system of governance and collective leadership.  Deng and his colleagues set about establishing some institutional rules to decentralize authority, regularize political life, and check autocratic power to help the CCP survive in power. These political reforms developed alongside the economic reforms during the administrations of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.  Yet today,...
Monday, November 27, 2017 - 19:30

The Chicken or the egg: has global trade transformed China or has China transformed global trade as we know it?

Jörg Wuttke Vice President and Chief Representative of BASF China

The recent 19th party congress provides a timely framework to analyze the significant economic trends we are witnessing in China today and what it means for China, and the rest of the world.  Since China acceded to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, the country’s importance to and impact on the global economy has expanded rapidly. This has been particularly notable since the global financial crisis in 2008. While this has created new opportunities and benefits for Europe, it has also brought with it important new challenges. One such challenge is the impact of industrial...
Thursday, November 16, 2017 - 19:30

The Art of Ink: Marrying the Ancient and the Contemporary in Chinese Art

Craig Yee and Christopher Reynolds INK Studio Founders

Craig Yee and Christopher Reynolds, Co-Founders of Beijing-based contemporary art gallery INK Studio， will speak about contemporary ink in terms of both Western and Chinese philosophy and art. They will also introduce their upcoming group exhibition, Luminous Shadows which explores spirituality and divinity in the transience between artistic medium and sensory perception. INK Studio is an art gallery based in Beijing. Its mission is to present Chinese experimental ink as a distinctive contribution to contemporary transnational art-making. The gallery exhibits works...
Thursday, October 19, 2017 - 19:30

China Reaches for the Stars: Power Play and Challenges as China Sets Its Sights on Astronomy

Eric Peng, Associate Professor at Peking University, Observational Astronomer

Dear BIS Friends,

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China is making a concerted effort to become an international leader in astronomy for a number of reasons, scientific as well as geopolitical. China’s geography and climate do not naturally lend themselves to astronomical research, in the way that the deserts of the American Southwest or Latin America do, yet China has been striving to take the lead in this field in recent years, allocating time, people and resources to achieve this aim. Eric Peng will analyze why China is turning to astronomy as a new sphere to exercise its geopolitical influence, what the competing political...
Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 19:30

Red Diaper Babies 2: Life through the eyes of the families of “Foreign Experts” who lived in China during the Cultural Revolution

A panel discussion with Antonio Ochoa and Andy Friend moderated by Caroline Nath

Following the hugely popular launch of the Red Diaper Babies series in the spring, we are delighted to announce a sequel. Living in China during the Cultural Revolution, the families of ‘foreign experts’ have a unique insight into this complex and defining period of Chinese history. From the 50’s through the 80’s, when China was still a mystery to the rest of the world, a small community of international “red experts” were living and working in Beijing. They all shared sympathy for the struggle of the Chinese people and were following an ideal to build a better world. The two...
Thursday, June 8, 2017 - 19:30

Comedy in China: Insights from a Crosstalk Performer

Jesse Appell, comedian and founder of the US-China Comedy Center

Come laugh and learn with Jesse Appell, practitioner of the Chinese comedic art form of 'crosstalk'. In 2012, Jesse arrived in Beijing and apprenticed to a Chinese comedy master teacher, and has now spent five years performing all types of Chinese comedy. Do you want to know what he found out? Jesse Appell has performed Chinese language comedy on tours around China and the world, TV and cruise ships. He is the founder of the US-China Comedy Center, whose goal is to bring together China and the world through laughter.
Thursday, May 25, 2017 - 19:30

Struggling to the Finish Line: Can China Complete Its Economic Modernisation?

Alex Van Kemenade, Director of Consulting for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit

After over three decades of reform, China has successfully entered the ranks of the world's middle-income countries. Yet, with economic growth and reform momentum both flagging, the country's ascent to great power status is far from guaranteed. Debt-laden State-Owned Enterprises, government financing shortfalls and industrial overcapacity are taking their toll. Hundreds of millions of rural residents have yet to move to the cities and receive adequate social services while the population continues to age. Economic, political and social risks to growth are greater than they have been in...
Thursday, May 18, 2017 - 19:30

The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao

Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Johnson will give BIS an exclusive talk about his new book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. Hot off the press, it was published in April and is the culmination of a six-year research project about one of the world's great spiritual revivals. The book looks at why, after a century of violent anti-religious campaigns, China is now filled with new temples, churches and mosques, as well as cults, sects and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty: uncertainty...
Thursday, April 20, 2017 - 19:30

The Man who took a Bite out of Apple: Empowering Citizens to take on China’s Environmental Challenges

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs in Beijing, China

Ma Jun will talk to us about the impact of pollution, take a closer look at China’s green policies and ask what solutions are most likely to produce results. He will introduce the theme of empowering civil society through the act of consumption. Ma Jun will tell us how he and his team have exposed air and water violations by local and multinational companies operating in China. Thanks to his app, Chinese citizens, for the first time in history, have at their fingertips information that reveals which companies are violating environmental regulations—and with it, the power to demand justice...
Thursday, April 13, 2017 - 19:30

Red Diaper Babies - Made in China: The Legacy of “Foreign Experts” and their Families

A panel discussion with Michael Crook and Andy Friend moderated by Caroline Nath

From the 50’s through the 80’s, when China was still a mystery to the rest of the world, a small community of international “red experts” were living and working in Beijing. Some were scientists, many were political exiles and they all shared sympathy for the struggle of the Chinese people and were following an ideal to build a better world. These two charismatic foreign red guards will share a glimpse into their fascinating childhood and that politically charged era. From having Chinese as their first language and growing up in a mono-racial world, to the political struggles among foreign...
Thursday, March 9, 2017 - 19:30

Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: the Death of Neil Heywood Revisited

Carrie Gracie, BBC China Editor

Carrie will discuss the making of her current five part podcast and radio series ‘Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel’. The series investigates the tangled tale of business, politics and crime which led to the death of businessman Neil Heywood in a Chongqing hotel room in 2011, and charts the way the sensational exposure of the murder changed the course of Chinese politics.    Carrie joined the BBC World Service in 1987 as a trainee producer and after attachments to various departments, became a producer in Current Affairs. She was the BBC World Service Beijing reporter in the...
Thursday, February 16, 2017 - 19:30

From Social Realism to Hollywood Commercialism: A Journey Through China’s 5th Generation Filmmaking

Karen Ma, film critic, author and lecturer at the Beijing Center of Chinese Studies 

This talk by film lecturer Karen Ma looks at how China’s so-called fifth-generation filmmakers—the first generation to attract wide international acclaim at a time when Chinese cinema was relatively unknown—came to the industry largely by accident; and how their formative years and shared historical background helped shape their choice of subject matter and aesthetics in their early works.  It will also examine why their later films have lost much of their earlier punch seen between the 1980s and early 1990s, and the factors behind their subsequent road to Hollywood style commercialism....
Thursday, January 19, 2017 - 19:30

China and The Environment: The Lessons of the Loess Plateau

John D Liu, Director, Environmental Education Media Project, Visiting Fellow, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NICO), Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), Ecosystems Ambassador, Commonland Foundation

In the mid 1990s, John D Liu began a participatory process with a number of media and broadcasting colleagues in Beijing that led to the creation of the Environmental Education Media Project, investigating sustainable ecological issues within China, specifically within the Loess Plateau region, which resulted in the production of over 1,000 environmental films. The Loess Plateau has proved to be an excellent place to pursue a type of ecological forensic investigation to witness and understand how human activity over time can destroy natural ecological function. John D Liu...