China Reconnects: Joining a Deep-rooted Past to a New World Order

Key information

Date
Time
1:30 PM to 2:30 PM
Venue
Virtual Event

About this event

Professor Wang Gungwu (National University of Singapore)
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China Reconnects: Joining a Deep-rooted Past to a New World Order

* Registration for this webinar has now closed. It will be live streamed via our Facebook page for those that were unable to register.

Abstract

China Reconnects shows how the Chinese are now confident of their capacity to learn all they need from the developed world and are keen to know which parts of the past they would need to build a modern Chinese civilization. They are very conscious of the challenges coming from the United States, and are looking for ways and means to respond to a superpower that wants to preserve its dominant position in the international status quo.

China Reconnects seeks to explain what China is doing and what its immediate and long-term interests are. It is not to defend or judge China. It does not employ theoretical frameworks that are not appropriate for describing Chinese conditions. It calls for understanding why history is particularly relevant to the Chinese state and most of its people. That way, we also see how the present and hopes for the future changes our perspectives of the past.

About the speaker

Wang Gungwu is a professor at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus of the Australian National University. He is Foreign Honorary Member of the History Division of the American Academy of Arts and Science and former President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1995.

In 2020 Professor Wang was honoured by being named the winner of the Tang Prize for Sinology. He is also an alumnus and Honorary Fellow of SOAS.

His recent books include Renewal: The Chinese State and the New Global History (2013); The Eurasian Core and Its Edges (2015); Nanyang: Essays on Heritage (2018); and Home is Not Here (2018).

Registration

This webinar will take place online via Zoom. After registering, a separate Zoom registration link will be emailed to you closer to the date of the webinar. Online Registration

Chair: Professor Steve Tsang (Director, SOAS China Institute)

Organiser: SOAS China Institute and World Scientific Publishing

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4823