UPenn Center for the Study of Contemporary China

In-depth conversations on Chinese politics, economics, law, and society with faculty, visitors, and guest speakers at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Hosted by CSCC Research Scholar Neysun Mahboubi. For more information on the Center, visit https://cscc.sas.upenn.edu

Reporting From a Rising China – Edward Wong 01/01/2023

Reporting From a Rising China – Edward Wong Western media presence in China has been vastly reduced since February 2020, the consequence both of political tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic. As the Chinese government finally begins to dismantle its “zero-Covid” policy in December 2022, the prospect of Western journalists returning to on-the-ground reporting from China appears more promising than it has in years. In this episode, discusses with , who reported from China for The New York Times from 2008-2016 and served as Beijing bureau chief, the narrative-defining stories he covered in those years, which so much have shaped the present moment in China’s governance and relations with the outside world. Recorded on October 16, 2019, the conversation highlights the unique and valuable “critical empathy” foreign correspondents can offer when deeply immersed in China. Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, who reports on foreign policy from Washington, D.C. In 23 years at the Times, he has spent 13 years abroad, filing dispatches from dozens of countries, including North Korea, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia. He covered the Iraq War, based in Baghdad, from 2003 to 2007 and reported from China, based in Beijing, from 2008 to 2016. As Beijing bureau chief, he ran the Times’ largest overseas operation. Wong has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and done fellowships at the Belfer Center of Harvard Kennedy School and at the Wilson Center in Washington. He has taught international reporting as a visiting professor at Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley. Wong received a Livingston Award for his coverage of the Iraq War and was on a team from the Times’ Baghdad Bureau that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. He has two awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia for coverage of China. He graduated from the University of Virginia and U.C. Berkeley, and studied Mandarin Chinese at the Beijing Language and Culture University, Taiwan University, and Middlebury College. Sound engineering: Neysun Mahboubi Music credit: "" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com /episode/index/show/penncscc/id/25473459

U.S. Human Rights Policy Towards China – Amy Gadsden 04/08/2022

U.S. Human Rights Policy Towards China – Amy Gadsden While the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong lately have been the subject of particular scrutiny from U.S. policymakers, systematic attention to China’s human rights practices, more broadly, has been a consistent feature of U.S. policy towards China in recent decades, through successive Democratic and Republican administrations. In this episode, discusses with , a leading expert on human rights in China, the background to why human rights came to be such a major factor in U.S.-China relations, and how this portfolio of issues does (and should) relate to other policy considerations. The episode was recorded on August 16, 2019. Amy Gadsden is Associate Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, in which capacity she works with Penn’s schools and centers to develop and implement strategies to increase Penn’s global engagement both on campus and overseas, including by advancing Penn’s activities with respect to China. Previously, she served as Associate Dean for International and Strategic Initiatives at Penn Law School, where she built a comprehensive program aimed at expanding the Law School’s global curriculum. As an adjunct faculty member, Dr. Gadsden has taught seminars in international human rights and the rule of law. Before coming to Penn, she served as Special Advisor for China at the U.S. Department of State, and before that she served as China Director for the International Republican Institute. She has published widely on democracy and human rights in China, documenting legal and civil society reform, and was one of the first American scholars to observe and write about grassroots elections in China in the mid-1990s. Dr. Gadsden holds a Ph.D in Qing legal history from the University of Pennsylvania. Sound engineering: Kaiser Kuo and Neysun Mahboubi Music credit: "" by Poppy Ackroyd, follow her at http://poppyackroyd.com /episode/index/show/penncscc/id/22734557

China's Overseas NGO Law – Mark Sidel 12/15/2021