Category: announcements

We are honoured to have Chen Liming, Chair of IBM Greater China and Honorary Professor of the University of Edinburgh to open this year’s Business Lecture Series – Belt & Road Initiative.

As developing countries industrialize, they can learn from the experience of other countries and implement high-tech solutions to ensure a more efficient, sustainable, and eco-friendly pathway to improve people’s life and prosperity. Good governance during development therefore not only covers economic and social governance, but also good governance of high-tech, and above all, good governance of data. In a data driven world, data becomes the most valuable asset, but at times also the most vulnerable. Current dependence on data in advanced economies raises the stakes when cybercrime hits, and cyberattacks can spread across geographic borders to impact any country. As developing countries begin to accumulate more data and maximize value from this precious resource, they must be mindful of good governance of their data to protect infrastructure, financial systems, and the digital lives of their citizens.

This talk will take place in the University of Edinburgh Business School. The lecture will start at 6pm and be followed by a Q&A and then networking drinks reception. 

To book your seat please register here – Booking for Chen Liming’s lecture.

Biography

Chen Liming is a transformational and transboundary business leader with a track record of 30+ years with MNCs across a range of industries and diversified cultures. He has led corporate transformation, business turnaround, performance improvement, and governance enhancement. Mr. Chen is accountable for the overall performance of IBM Greater China Group across multiple business units. Since joining IBM in 2015, he has designed and implemented the ‘IBM Greater China Group Strategy’ and ‘Made with China’ initiatives adapted to the new business era. He has driven process simplification to make the company more client and market centric, and enhanced governance by creating a responsible culture. He has served on many boards of directors, including China Aviation Oil Company (Singapore) and Cornell University China Advisory Board. He was appointed as the Senior International Advisor to the Governor of Shaanxi Province, China in 2017. Mr. Chen obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Xinjiang Shihezi University in 1982 and Master’s degree from Cornell University in 1989. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School (HBS) in 2003 and MCB class at HBS in 2013. He and his family currently live in Beijing.

Free entry. All welcome. Booking is required.

The fourth scholar in our Distinguished Lecture Series is Ban Wang, the William Haas Professor in Chinese Studies and a board member of the Confucius Institute at Stanford University.

Professor Wang is also the Yangtze River Chair Professor at East China Normal University. In addition to his research on Chinese and comparative literature, he has written on English and French literatures, psychoanalysis, international politics, and cinema.

He received his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1993. He was a research fellow with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. He taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University, SUNY-Stony Brook, Harvard University, and Rutgers University before he came to Stanford.  He has been a recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was also a research fellow with the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 2007.

LECTURE TOPIC

Where Have All The Villages Gone? –
The Life and Death of Rural Culture in Chinese Literature and Film

In China, “home sweet home” would refer to a village rather than a city. This talk shows that the Chinese village, a source of nostalgia and memory, undergoes decline and rebirth in the midst of China’s pursuit of modernization and urbanization. Whether as a retreat or a depository of traditional values, the village home epitomizes a series of responses to uprooting and destruction.Walking through literary scenarios and film clips, Professor Wang will discuss changing stances and sentiment toward village culture and rural landscape. In literature, nostalgia for home is mixed with a rejection of tradition. On the other hand, depictions of the desolate village are tinged with utopian yearnings for the harmonious home of the Peach Blossom Spring.

While Zhang Yimou’s Road Home elevates communal bonds and Confucian values to a sublime height, Postmen in the Mountain (dir. Huo Jianqi) raises concerns about the village caught up between urbanization and the preservation of rural culture.

PUBLICATIONS

His major works include The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth Century China (Stanford UP, 1997) and Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory and History (Stanford, 2004); and History and Memory (Oxford University 2004). He co-edited Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations (Hong Kong UP, 2004), The Image of China in the American Classroom (Nanjing UP, 2006), China and New Left Visions (Lexington, 2012), and Debating Socialist Legacy and Capitalist Globalization (Palgrave, 2014). He edited Words and Their Stories: Essays on the Languages of the Chinese Revolution (Brill 2012). His edited volume Rethinking Chinese Perceptions of World Order is forthcoming from Duke University Press. He was a recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a research fellow with the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 2007.

For further information please visit his page at Stanford University.

Thurs 4 June 5.30pm-7pm
Lecture Theatre 2
University of Edinburgh Business School
29 Buccleuch Place
EH8 9JY

All welcome. No registration required. Networking drinks reception follows

This seminar explores the historical and contemporary experiences of Scots in Asia,  with a keynote lecture by Professor Emeritus, Sir Tom Devine and a range of  impressive speakers. 

The keynote lecture from Sir Tom Devine entitled ‘Addicting the Dragon: China, Opium, and Scotland’ will be held in the Meadows Lecture Theatre, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, University of Edinburgh from 5.30pm on Friday 26th .

Professor Emeritus, Sir Tom Devine graduated from Strathclyde University and hold honorary doctorates from The Queen’s University, Belfast and the University of Abertay, Dundee. At Strathclyde he rose through the academic ranks from assistant lecturer to Professor of Scottish History (in 1988), Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and, finally, Deputy Principal of the University from 1994 to 1998. From 1999 to 2004 he was a member of staff at Aberdeen University, being successively University Research Professor in Scottish History, Director of the AHRC Research Centre in Irish and Scottish Studies and Glucksman Research Chair of Irish and Scottish Studies. He joined Edinburgh University in January 2006. In addition to these appointments in the UK, he hold Honorary Professorships across the Atlantic at North Carolina (USA) and Guelph (Canada). Between 1992 and 1993 he was a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow.

The event Opening on Friday 26th with a keynote lecture at 5.30pm and the remaining talks will take place from 9.45am until 6pm on Saturday 27 June.

The seminar on Saturday 27th June runs from 09.45am till 6pm. The programme features:

• Dr Tom Barron, independent historian: ‘Scots coffee planters in nineteenth century Ceylon’
• Dr Tanja Bueltmann, Northumbria University: ‘From ethnic associational-ism to social networking: A longitudinal comparison of formal sociability in Scottish communities in Asia, c.1870 to the present’
• Professor Emeritus Sir Tom Devine, University of Edinburgh, ‘Addicting the dragon: China, opium, and the Scottish factor’
•  Ellen Filor, University College London, ‘Death or a Pension: Scots and the End of the East India Company, 1800-1857′
•  Dr Joanna Frew, University of Essex, ‘Agricultural improvement and order in the Baramahal, South India, 1792-99′
• Dr Isabella Jackson, University of Aberdeen, ‘The Shanghai Scottish: Scottish, imperial, and local identities in the Scottish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps’
• Professor Angela McCarthy, University of Otago, ‘James Taylor and cross-cultural encounters in Ceylon’
• Dr George McGilvary, honorary postdoctoral fellow, Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies, University of Edinburgh, ‘Commercial exploits of the Scottish elite in India and South-east Asia, 1760-1830, with special reference to David Scott, MP (1746-1805)’
• Professor Emeritus Patrick Peebles, University of Missouri – Kansas City, ‘Governor James Alexander Stewart Mackenzie and the making of Ceylon’
• Iain Watson, University of Edinburgh, ‘The right kind of migrants: Scottish expatriates in Hong Kong and South-East Asia since 1950 and the preservation of human capital’.

The lectures will take place at Meadows Lecture Theatre, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, University of Edinburgh EH8 9AG. All are welcome to attend either the Friday or Saturday only sessions or both.  Admission is free but booking is required at:  https://eventbrite.co.uk/event/15925511634/ Please select tickets as appropriate.

The event is sponsored by the ESRC Seminar Series ‘Scotland’s Diasporas in Comparative Perspective’ and the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies, University of Edinburgh in partnership with the University of Otago and the University of Hull.

Join us on Wed 6th May 18.30-20.00 at the University of Edinburgh Business School when Jonathan Fenby will speak about his recent book of the same title, in which he outlines the challenges that China faces during its recent phase of spectacular growth.

Biography

Jonathan Fenby is former deputy editor of The Guardian 1988–1993; editor of The Observer 1993 –1995 and editor of The South China Morning Post 1995-1999.

He currently runs the China team at Trusted Sources, an emerging markets research and consultancy firm he founded. He is a leading analyst on China with a strong following in the investment community.

Jonathan’s specialist area is policy interpretation, politics and the broader political economy. He is the author of eight books on China. His ‘History of Modern China’ for Penguin Press and Harper Collins was chosen as one of the books of the year for 2008 by The Economist and Financial Times. He broadcasts frequently on CNBC, BBC and Bloomberg, among other broadcast media, and lectures on contemporary China in the UK, US, Europe and East Asia.

SYNOPSIS & Format

China has to deal with political, economic, social and international tests, each of which involves structural difficulties that will put the system under strain. Based on the speaker’s extensive knowledge of contemporary China, this event will offer a pragmatic view of where the People’s Republic of China is heading at a time when its future is too important an issue for wishful theorizing.

Jonathan’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Richard Harrison, who is the China lead for the Business School looking at strategic partnership development. They will be joined by University of Edinburgh’s Professor Matthias Zachmann, who specialises in East Asian International relations.

This is a joint event with the Asia Scotland Institute.  Registration is required.

18.00: Registration
18.30-20.00:  Lecture
20.00:  Drinks Reception

Venue: Auditorium, University of Edinburgh Business School, 29 Buccleuch Place, EH8 9JS

Dr Andreas Guder based in Freie Universität, Berlin where he is the Head of Chinese Language Study, is making a short visit to Edinburgh. Andreas also holds the post of Chairman of the Association of Chinese Teachers in German Speaking Countries (FaCh).

His talk is entitled “Chinese as a Foreign Language in Germany: Institutions, Activities and Perspectives of the German Chinese Language Teachers Association”. He will focus on four main topics.

1. Chinese as a Foreign Language in Germany
2. Association of Chinese Teachers in German Speaking Countries (FaCh)
3. Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and HSK
4. European Benchmarks for the Chinese Language Project

This talk will take place on Tuesday 3 March running 5.30pm-7pm in the University of Edinburgh Business School, Lecture Theatre 3, 29 Buccleuch Place, EH8 9JS.  Following on from the lecture and Q&A there will be a networking drinks reception.

David Shambaugh is Professor of Political Science & International Affairs and founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. His talk “China at the Crossroads? Major Reform Challenges” which is part of the Confucius Institute for Scotland’s 2015 Distinguished Lecture Series, will take place on Monday 9 March from 5.30pm.

SYNOPSIS: “CHINA AT THE CROSSROADS? MAJOR REFORM CHALLENGES”

After thirty-five years of successful reforms first launched by Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues at the famous Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in December 1978, many China watchers (and many Chinese inside China) judge that the nation is at a crossroads and has reached a series of critical junctures in its economic, social, political, environmental, intellectual, foreign policy and other areas. This lecture will explore a number the major challenges confronting the Xi Jinping leadership, and will assess the progress being made.`

BIOGRAPHY

In addition to holding the posts of Professor of Political Science & International Affairs and founding Director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, David Shambough is also a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program and Center for East Asian Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution. He was previously Reader in Chinese Politics in the University of London`s School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), where he also served as Editor of The China Quarterly. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Asia-Pacific Council, and other public policy and scholarly organizations. He has been selected as a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Senior Scholar by the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a Distinguished Research Professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.