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COVID19 in Asia: Diverse Effects, Responses & Prospects for Recovery

The pandemic that swept the world since early 2020 has triggered various levels of response from different countries in Asia. While some countries in the region have been hailed as exemplary, others became cautionary tales. Join our panelists, Qin Gao – Professor of Social Policy and Social Work, Director of China Center on Social Policy, Columbia, Jayati Ghosh – Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Duncan McCargo – Director, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Professor of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, to discuss the varying effects, response, and outcome of the pandemic in this very diverse region. Moderator: Moderator: Jose Antonio Ocampo, Co-director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration, Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA.

Registration for this event is required. Zoom link will be shared with those who register one day prior to the event. Please register here.

This event is sponsored by the Economic and Political Development concentration at SIPA; Weatherhead East Asian Institute; China Center for Social Policy, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, and Southeast Asian Student Initiative.

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Early China Seminar Lecture Series | Charting the Early Chinese Oikumene: Min Li

Early China Seminar Lecture Series

Title: “Charting the Early Chinese Oikumene”
Speaker: Min Li, University of California, Los Angeles
Time: February 19, 2021 (4:30–6:30pm EST)
The event will be held via Zoom. Please click on “Request Pre-circulated Paper” to register for the event.

Yugong (Tributes of the Great Yu) presents an influential conceptual framework of ordering the early Chinese oikumene. Taking the Jinnan Basin as the center of its worldview, the text presents a nonary division of the civilized world known as the Yu’s Tracks, where the legendary figure allegedly toured and drained flood water at the end of the third millennium BCE. With an inventory of tribute goods and an outline of tribute routes for each region, the text aims at making the landscape legible and subject to political control, thus becoming an integral component for the ideology of kingship and empire by the late first millennium BCE.

Based on the analyses of grammatical patterns and the geographic configuration in transmitted and excavated texts, this seminar will evaluate two alternative hypotheses about the date, purpose, and sponsorship for the creation of this ideological topography: a deeply rooted prehistoric religious tradition emerging from a ritual performance of space vs. a recent political myth invented in the fourth century BCE to project imperial ambition. Variation and commonality observed in these texts suggests multiple strands of transmission and shared cultural assumptions, indicating that this notion of a Chinese oikumene had become the cornerstone of Zhou classical learning. This study calls for a significant expansion in the temporal and spatial frames for investigating the genealogy of knowledge in the Yugong tradition based on a critical understanding of the shifting archaeological landscape in Bronze Age China.

All Meetings will be on Friday, 4:30-6:30PM, unless otherwise noted, open to members, affiliates, and graduate students.

Due to the extraordinary circumstances of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to move the seminars online for 2020-2021. All seminars will be hosted via Zoom on Fridays, but the start and end times may vary due to time differences of the speaker.

Request Pre-Circulated Paper.

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The Evolving Cross-Strait Policy of the Democratic Progressive Party

Please join us for a lecture:

The Evolving Cross-Strait Policy of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan

Jason Po-Nien Chen, Advisor (Section of National Security), New Frontier Foundation (DPP think tank)

Moderated by: Andrew Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

This talk will be composed of three main sections. First, Dr. Chen will introduce the DPP’s evolving cross-Strait policy by breaking it down into three respective phrases:1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Then he will explain why the party changed from championing independence versus unification in 1990s; intraparty power struggle between de facto and de jure independence in 2000s; and reach the current position of “opposition to de facto unification under one China” rather than “pursuit of Taiwan de jure independence” in 2010s. Second, he will share his research finding and understanding regarding the DPP’s view towards the status quo of cross-Strait relations. Third, he will discuss the change and continuity of the DPP’s position towards sovereignty and cross-Strait relations.

Organized by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.

Online via Zoom. Please register here.

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