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41. The Wuhan Lockdown

Author:
Guobin Yang and Qin Gao
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
In this book talk, the author tells the dramatic story of the Wuhan lockdown in the voices of the city’s own people. Using a vast archive of more than 6,000 diaries, the sociologist Guobin Yang vividly depicts how the city coped during the crisis. He analyzes how the state managed—or mismanaged—the lockdown and explores how Wuhan’s residents responded by taking on increasingly active roles. Yang demonstrates that citizen engagement—whether public action or the civic inaction of staying at home—was essential in the effort to fight the pandemic. The book features compelling stories of citizens and civic groups in their struggle against COVID-19: physicians, patients, volunteers, government officials, feminist organizers, social media commentators, and even aunties loudly swearing at party officials. These snapshots from the lockdown capture China at a critical moment, revealing the intricacies of politics, citizenship, morality, community, and digital technology. This event is part of the 2021-2022 lecture series on “COVID-19 Impacts and Responses in China and Beyond” and is co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the China Center for Social Policy.
Topic:
Crisis Management, Pandemic, Domestic Policy, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and Asia

42. Rise and Fall of Technology in Chinese History

Author:
Yasheng Huang and Madeleine Zelin
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Joseph Needham famously asked why China did not have its own Industrial Revolution. Using a newly constructed database, Yasheng Huang will show that China’s technological collapse happened much earlier than previously thought and the collapse coincided closely with the rise of autocracy and ideological homogeneity. Here is an excerpt from his book: My book has five parts, and the content is roughly split between history and the PRC. After this chapter, the three chapters in Part I deal with the E component of the EAST formulation. Two chapters are devoted to the keju exam; the other chapter is devoted to a panoply of tools employed by the CCP to achieve homogeneity. The two chapters in Part 2 deal with autocracy and the evolution of autocracy during the imperial and Communist eras. Part 3 analyzes the stability of regimes during the two eras. Part 4 tackles technology. One chapter traces the history of the rise and fall of Chinese inventiveness during the dynastic era; the other chapter delves into the present time and tells the story of how the CCP utilizes its scale advantage in combination with importation of scope functions to advance its science and technology. AI, biotechnology, and publication of scientific papers feature empirically in my telling of this story. Part 5 opens with a discussion of why China has failed to converge with the rest of East Asia by moving down a path of scope expansions. The chapter revisits a major topic in history—why Japan responded to the West effectively through the Meiji Reformation, whereas China descended into civil conflicts and chaos under similar pressures. I will also come back to a topic I initiated earlier in this chapter—the scale and scope contrasts between China and India. The final chapter is an assessment of China on a number of issues.
Topic:
Science and Technology, History, and Ideology
Political Geography:
China

43. Chinese Trust in Government: A Response Pattern Approach

Author:
Cary Wu and Yao Lu
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Chinese citizens have high trust in their government is well documented. Recent data show that this remains true during the COVID-19 crisis. Nonetheless, a long-standing debate is whether Chinese trust in government is genuine or simply a reflection of political fear. To offer further insights, in this article I adopt a response pattern approach that shifts the focus from how much people trust (the level of trust) to how people trust (the pattern of trust). Analyzing data from multiple sources, I consider the homogeneity and heterogeneity in how political trust is expressed among diverse populations (e.g., children vs adults) and in different situations (e.g., taped vs. not taped). I identify ten specific patterns that consistently suggest Chinese trust in government may not be simply reduced to a misrepresentation out of political fear. This study illustrates that examining the often-overlooked patterns of how people express their attitudes within different segments of the population and in different contexts provides a means to test whether the expressed attitudes are fake or genuine. This event is sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the China Center for Social Policy.
Topic:
Government, Public Opinion, Citizenship, COVID-19, and Trust
Political Geography:
China and Asia

44. The End of the Village: Planning the Urbanization of Rural China

Author:
Weiping Wu, Xiaobo Lü, Nick R. Smith, Wing-Shing Tang, Deborah Davis, and Andrew Kipnis
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has dramatically expanded its urbanization processes in an effort to reduce the inequalities between urban and rural areas. New development programs, including “urban-rural coordination”, “new-type urbanization”, and, most recently, “rural revitalization”, are restructuring China’s urban–rural relations and imposing novel forms of state-led urbanization onto the countryside. Rural simulacra, such as high-rise new towns, ecological protection zones, historical tourism sites, and industrialized farms, increasingly reflect planners' and policy-makers' urban imaginations of what the rural should be and have more to do with serving urban consumers than ensuring rural welfare. The result is a fundamental rewriting of the nation’s social contract, as villages that once organized rural life and guaranteed rural livelihoods are replaced by an increasingly urbanized landscape dominated by state institutions. Smith’s recently published book, The End of the Village: Planning the Urbanization of Rural China, explores the contested implementation of this radical new approach to urbanization in the municipality of Chongqing. Drawing on the book’s findings, this interdisciplinary panel brings together leading scholars of Chinese urbanization to discuss the ongoing transformation of China’s urban–rural relations. This event is cosponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia GSAPP, and Columbia SIPA.
Topic:
Urbanization, Inequality, and Rural
Political Geography:
China and Asia

45. Twelfth Annual N.T Wang Distinguished Lecture: China is Not a Donor

Author:
Deborah Bräutigam and Thomas J. Christensen
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
The nature of Chinese lending in risky countries remains poorly understood. Drawing on data on Chinese loans, creditors and contractors, and case studies of Chinese lending in Zambia, Kenya, Montenegro and Sri Lanka, this talk illustrates three areas in which misunderstandings create challenges. First, China is often portrayed as a monolithic, highly coordinated actor. Our research suggests instead that project finance from China can be highly fragmented, uncoordinated, and even chaotic. A second common fallacy is to assume all Chinese funding is “foreign aid” and then compare its terms or impact with funding offered by the World Bank, or bilateral donors. Our research suggests that Chinese foreign aid is a tiny fraction of all Chinese lending; the appropriate “apples to apples” comparisons will often be export credit agencies, private commercial banks, commodity traders, and even Eurobonds. Finally, some journalists, pundits and policymakers have promoted the idea that Chinese banks deliberately lend to risky countries to secure strategic assets. We question the evidence for “debt trap diplomacy” and suggest instead that China Eximbank suffers from “Tazara Syndrome” – a megaproject bias that can be traced back to the iconic African railway of the 1970s. This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, and cosponsored by the China and the World Program at Columbia University.
Topic:
Debt, Diplomacy, Foreign Aid, Donors, and Loans
Political Geography:
China and Asia

46. Russia in the Indo-Pacific: Perspectives from China, Russia, and the United States

Author:
Gaye Christoffersen, Ying Liu, Artyom Lukin, Elena Feditchkina Tracy, and Elizabeth Wishnick
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Russia’s role in the Indo-Pacific is an understudied topic—while much of the discussion of Russia in Asia typically focuses on its response to geopolitical rivalries, the volume addresses ideational factors in Russia’s relations with regional and global powers, the domestic drivers of Russia’s Asia-Pacific policy, as well as the complex iteration of regional identities in Asia-Pacific Russia and in the Sino-Russian partnership. Contributors to this volume are based across Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the USA, drawing on a range of multinational perspectives and theoretical approaches. Panelists at this event will present views from Beijing, Vladivostok, and the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
Russia, China, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

47. How Transnational Education Transforms Privilege

Author:
Yingyi Ma and Yao Lu
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
This study examines two cohorts of Chinese international students studying in the U.S. whose privilege is challenged and sometimes upended before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research questions the dominant framing of privilege centering on the notion of ease, as informed by the western scholarship on elite education. Drawing from the power structure of international education and rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, this study concludes that transnational education infuses much anxiety and fragility into the lived experiences of international students, who have experienced the status loss from the privileged majority to the marginalized minority. COVID had exacerbated this loss. This study contributes to the scholarship on elites by interrogating the western-centric notion of privilege. This event is part of the 2021-2022 lecture series on “COVID-19 Impacts and Responses in China and Beyond” and is sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by Columbia's China Center for Social Policy.
Topic:
Education, Geopolitics, Students, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

48. Prospects for Japan's National Security Policy in 2022 and the US-Japan Alliance

Author:
Yuki Tatsumi and Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
The US and Japan convened the Security Consultative Committee (more commonly known as "2 plus 2") on January 6. The SCC Joint Statement that was released afterwards set goals for the Alliance that were most ambitious in recent years. How would it affect Japan as it enters the period of revising its three key national security documents? What are the challenges for Tokyo as it moves forward, and for the Alliance writ large?
Topic:
National Security, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and United States of America

49. Family and Inequality: “Diverging Destinies” in Japan

Author:
James M. Raymo and Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
“Diverging destinies” is a term used by family demographers and sociologists to describe growing socioeconomic differentials in family behavior and their implications. Drawing primarily on evidence from the U.S., research on diverging destinies has demonstrated that those at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum are increasingly engaging in family behaviors that are associated with reduction in the resources available to their children (e.g., nonmarital childbearing) while those at the upper end of the spectrum are engaging in family behaviors associated with increased resources (e.g., stable marriage). This pattern of family bifurcation has potentially important implications for the reinforcement of inequality both within and across generations. Despite tremendous interest in both family change and growing socioeconomic inequality in Japan, social scientific efforts to link these trends are limited. In this talk, Professor James Raymo will summarize the results of several recent papers (both published and in progress) on socioeconomic differences in family demographic behavior and children’s well-being in Japan. In general, the findings of these studies show patterns of family bifurcation consistent with predictions of the diverging destinies framework, but of a magnitude that is less pronounced than observed in the U.S. Among the most pronounced differences in Japan are a strong negative educational gradient in divorce and substantial differences in the well-being of children in single-mother and two-parent families. In thinking about the relevance of diverging destinies in Japan, he stresses the theoretical and empirical value of considering intergenerational family relationships, gender inequality, and the changing economic environment.
Topic:
Demographics, Inequality, Family, and Socioeconomics
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia

50. Photo Poetics: Chinese Lyricism and Modern Media Culture

Author:
Shengqing Wu, Ying Qian, and Alexander Alberro
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Chinese poetry has a long history of interaction with the visual arts. Classical aesthetic thought held that painting, calligraphy, and poetry were cross-fertilizing and mutually enriching. What happened when the Chinese poetic tradition encountered photography, a transformative technology and presumably realistic medium that reshaped seeing and representing the world? This event is organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, and the Center for Comparative Media, all at Columbia University.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Media, and Buddhism
Political Geography:
China and Asia