Cross-Strait Liberalization of Aviation: The Case of Kinmen

By Julie Yu-Wen Chen, Department of Asian Studies, Palacky University, Czech Republic & Ying Lee, Department of Geography, San Diego State University, USA. This article first appeared on the China Institute Policy Blog. In early December, DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-Wen made a campaign stop in Kinmen, an outlying island geographically close to China that …

Saturday Afternoon Snail Fishing

By Alice Richards, University of Nottingham UK exchange student studying MSci Hons Contemporary Chinese Studies. On Saturday 17th October between midday and 1 o’clock, I observed two groups of people fishing for snails in the XiaoPutuo area of Dongqian lake in Ningbo. These field notes will describe the behaviours of the two groups, analysing how …

Chinese Frustrations: My Rightist Mobility, My Leftist Hypocrisy

By Flair Donglai Shi, World Literatures in English (MSt) at University of Oxford. (Caution: the words “rightist” and “leftist” are used in the vaguest/broadest sense possible in this article, which is full of generalising languages and assuming discourses that the reader is welcome to deconstruct) My British dustbin is my best friend. It always sits …

Will Chinese trains come to Britain?

By Dr Yuefan Xiao Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam. The internationalisation of China’s High-Speed Rail (HSR) has gone a long way since 2010 and it epitomised China’s soft power as an ascending nation not only of great growing but innovative potential. Recent months have seen a sequence of international endorsements of China’s …

The Cautious Seldom Make Mistakes: Chinese Culture Centres Learn from Confucius’s Mistakes

By Dr. Zhenzhi Guo School of Journalism and Communication Tsinghua University. Dr. Zhang Xiaoling, School of Contemporary Chinese Studies University of Nottingham UK. The worldwide spread of Confucius Institutes (CIs) has become a global phenomenon. Their partnership with prestigious universities has won it many friends, but at the same time, has attracted strong levels of …

A Moving Display

By David O’Brien, Assistant Professor School of the Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo. As President Xi Jinping received the warmest of warm royal welcomes in Britain some eyebrows were raised back in Beijing when a 800 year document limiting the power of the British monarch was quietly moved. The Magna Carta, …

Alibaba & Chinese Business Culture

By Donald Bain, Student of UNNC Summer School 2015. Despite China’s political and economic power, their business practices remain poor because the intrinsic complexities of Chinese culture. Therefore the ultimate question is to what extent does China’s national culture have an impact on firms. By observing a successful company like Alibaba, a multi-national e-commerce company …

No Escaping from the Thucydides Trap

By Flair Donglai Shi, World Literatures in English (MSt) at University of Oxford. The whole the-rise-of-china-and-power-shift discussion has been heated up again since Xi Jinping’s first visit to the US as the president of PRC, despite its presence in the American media having been largely hijacked by the visit of the Pope. At the end …

Broadening my horizon: What lessons can Chinese education and their students teach me?

By Esther van Deelen, Student of UNNC Summer School 2015. As a primary school teacher I’ve been involved in the Dutch educational system since 2006. I’ve taught a lot of different classes and I’ve seen a lot of different schools. As in China, the Dutch government wants highly educated teachers and so I received a …

The Marriage Market of Shanghai’s Peoples’ Park

By Lauren Fung Student of UNNC Summer School 2015. People’s Park is considered to be one of the prettiest parks in Shanghai city, and is often a site of attraction for tourists to the area. Formerly the site of the Shanghai Racecourse, the park is located just south of Nanjing Road and to the north …