The first panel of the Contemporary China Centre (CCC) Conference Deconstructed series will be a panel discussion on 'China threat' discourses across academic disciplines in the UK, US and Australia.
References to a perceived threat by China (what we call ‘China Threat Discourses”) and its implications for the global order loom large in discussions about the People’s Republic’s growing political, economic, and military influence. Whether in the context of “China’s rise” or “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy”, China’s global ascendancy is now regularly represented as malevolent and dangerous in European, North American, and Australian mass media, bearing an unsettling resemblance to longstanding Orientalist and Sinophobic practices. Often overlooked in this discourse, however, is the role of academics. As crucial actors in the formation and circulation of ideas and reference frames about China’s place in the world, what role does academia play in the formation and management of such discourses?
The first panel of the Contemporary China Centre Conference Deconstructed, our new format for 2021/22, brings together leading international experts to discuss discursive constructions of the “China threat” across different academic disciplines. Based on their own research areas and experience, panellists will examine the ways in which “China threat” discourses work across their respective academic disciplines and will analyse the factors that have shaped their emergence and operation. They will consider the various implications of “China Threat” discourse and suggest ways in which it can be challenged without losing a critical stance towards both China and “the West”.
How to attend
The event is free to attend and open to all. A Zoom link will be provided to all those who register via Eventbrite before November 22.
Speakers
The Chair is Gerda Wielander from the University of Westminster.
Yangyang Cheng (Yale University)
Yangyang Cheng is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center, where her research focuses on the ethics and governance of science and U.S.-China relations. A particle physicist by training, she worked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for over a decade before joining Yale in 2021. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Foreign Policy, and many other publications.
Chi Zhang (University of St. Andrews)
Chi Zhang is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of St Andrews and an Associate Member of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. She has published in journals Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Politics and Religion and Asian Security. She is the editor of Human Security in China: A Post-Pandemic State.
David Brophy (University of Sydney)
David Brophy is a senior lecturer in modern Chinese history at the University of Sydney. He specialises in the history of Xinjiang, and is also a frequent commentator on Australia-China relations. He is the author of Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier (Harvard University Press, 2016), and the translator of In Remembrance of the Saints: The Rise and Fall of an Inner Asian Sufi Dynasty (Columbia University Press, 2021). His most recent book is China Panic: Australia’s Alternative to Paranoia and Pandering (Black Inc 2021).
Upcoming events in CCC Conference Deconstructed
Upcoming events in CCC Conference Deconstructed include:
- Panel 2: The Value of Chinese Cultural Studies (Dec 17th)
- Panel 3: Connecting Chinese Digital and Analogue Spaces (Feb TBC)
- Panel 4: Changing Discourses of Reproduction (Mar TBC)
- Panel 5: The Everyday Politics of Life in Xinjiang (May TBC)
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