CSC Members Research Forum 2019

Duoqi Xu, PhD., Professor of Law, Fudan Law School, Affiliated professor of Shanghai Advanced Finance Institute, Dawn Scholar of Shanghai, one of Ten Young Jurists of Shanghai in 2012. Professor Xu was a senior visiting Scholar of Fulbright Program at Harvard University in the United States from August 2016 to July 2017, a visiting scholar of Hauser Global Program at New York University from August 2008 to September 2009, a visiting scholar at Duke University from May to July in 2013 and a visiting professor of Taiwan University from September to November in 2013. Professor Xu is the founder and chief editor of Internet Finance Law Review, and  the executive council member of China Law Association on Science and Technology, the vice-director of Financial and Tax Law and Fiscal Investment and Loan Commission of Chinese Tax and Fiscal law, the deputy chairperson of the Financial Law Research Association of Shanghai, the academy of honor in AIIFL of the University of Hong Kong, the Commissioner of ITLA. She is also a mediator at the Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, and an arbitrator at the Guangzhou Finance Arbitration Commission and Zhuhai (Hengqin) Finance Arbitration Commission.

Jae Ho Chung is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Program on US–China Relations at Seoul National University. Professor Chung is a former Director of the Institute for China Studies and of the Center for International Studies at Seoul National University, Korea. Professor Chung is a graduate of Seoul National University, Brown University, and the University of Michigan where he received his PhD in 1993. Before joining Seoul National University, he taught at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology during 1993–1996. He was also a CNAPS Fellow at the Brookings Institution during 2002–2003 and Korea Foundation Visiting Professor at Renmin University of China in 2007. Professor Chung has served on the advisory committees for the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and of Reunification, and the National Security Council. Professor Chung is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Central Control and Local Discretion in China (Oxford University Press, 2000), Charting China’s Future (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Between Ally and Partner: Korea–China Relations and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2007), China’s Crisis Management (Routledge, 2011), and Assessing China’s Power (forthcoming). Professor Chung also published over 70 articles and book chapters, including six in China Quarterly.

Professor Chung is the founding coordinator of the Asian Network for the Study of Local China (ANSLoC). Professor Chung is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s Asia Security Initiative Grant on “Korea–China Relations and the US” for 2009 – 2012 and of Seoul National University’s Best Researcher Award in 2009. Professor Chung was also awarded the Best Research Book Award by the Korean Association for International Studies in 2012. 

Presenters: Professor Michael J. Jacobson (Sydney School of Education and Social Work), DrHongzhi (Veronica) Yang (Sydney School of Education and Social Work), Associate professor Linda Tsung (School of Languages and Cultures)

In order to enrich the opportunities for Australian students to learning foreign languages in an authentic context, especially for Asian languages such as Chinese, this project aims to develop a prototype Virtual Experiential Language Learning Environment (VELLE) that provides engaging virtual reality (VR) immersive experiences for students to develop their language skills in “simulated authentic” settings.  Teaching resources will also be developed and there will be a pilot study of Chinese language learning and student engagement with the VELLE. The intended benefit of this project is to demonstrate that newly available VR technologies may be designed to enhance Chinese language learning through a “virtually real” language learning experience and interactive opportunities for practice and feedback. The potential impact of this project is to introduce innovative cognitively-based theory for designing advanced VR technologies to study Chinese language learning in the field of applied linguistics and languages education. This project has received CSC cluster funding and FASS FRSS grant 2019.

Presenters: Dr Gil Hizi (Australian Anthropological Society Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology), Sophia Chen (PhD Candidate, Department of Chinese Studies), Dr Minerva Inwald (Casual Tutor)

The panel will introduce the University of Sydney-based iteration of the international “Reading and Writing the Chinese Dream” project. Run by Professor Timothy Cheek (University of British Columbia), Professor David Ownby (Université de Montréal), and Professor Joshua Fogel (York University), the “Reading and Writing the China Dream” project explores intellectual life in contemporary China by translating the work of Chinese public intellectuals into English.

During his time as a China Studies Centre Sydney China Distinguished Fellow in 2019, Professor Timothy Cheek ran two workshops for postgraduate students explaining the aims and methods of the “Reading and Writing the Chinese Dream” project. Building on Professor Cheek’s initial workshops, the China Studies Centre’s Language, Literature, Culture and Education Cluster launched its own workshop program – funded by the China Studies Centre – aimed at contributing translations to the international project.

For this panel, participants in the University of Sydney workshops will introduce the international project and explain two of its core approaches: the interdisciplinary “collaborative translation” method that pairs Chinese and English native speakers and the practice of using translations to “map” the Chinese intellectual public sphere for Anglophone readers. Discussing the University of Sydney iteration of the project, speakers will reflect on the experience of participating in this interdisciplinary workshop program.

Presenters: Hu Yunjie (Lisa) (PhD candidate in the Department of Chinese Studies), John Ling (Masters candidate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music) and Jean Jia Jia Wong (PhD candidate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music)

Panel chair and organiser:

Dr Catherine Ingram (Sydney Conservatorium of Music)

One extremely useful means for understanding many important aspects of cultural and social life is through exploring music-making and associated activities. However, these rich avenues of investigation are often overlooked by researchers, or left aside as they are considered to require specialist analytical skills. This panel illustrates the value of considering music in or from China through three brief reflections on the socioeconomic dimensions to the study of music in three very different ongoing graduate student projects that are being conducted both within and beyond the formal boundaries of music research. Hu Yunjie (Lisa) discusses merchant sponsorship of theatrical performance in the late imperial era, suggesting some connections between commerce and theatrical performance of the time. John Ling outlines how important social changes and processes of Westernisation in 20th century China seem to have influenced changes to the structure of the pipa. Finally, Jean Jia Jia Wong explores the dispersal of a widely practiced Buddhist ritual into the diaspora, and offers initial thoughts on the musical effects of this process.

Presenter: Dr Michael Paton

Shi (configurational force/power base/strategic advantage) is a concept basic to areas of traditional Chinese thought as disparate as history, political philosophy, calligraphy, warfare and dili (principles of the earth), traditional Chinese spiritual geography.  Much of the discourse on the Global South could be viewed through the prism of shi in terms of history and politics with the melding of the discourse with modernity and the northern hemisphere bifurcation of East and West, such that India and China are often perceived as belonging to the South and Australia to the North. In contrast, this paper argues that such a focus on the mere political and historical could have a negative effect on human sustainability over the long term and that more attention needs to be paid to actual geography and its spiritual component in the understanding of the Global South. Dili theory is used to argue for a geographical ‘southern culture’, based on the traditional Chinese precept that the ‘soil and water of a place rear the people of that place’. Australia is used as an example with its ‘desert that does not look like a desert’ enabling a perception of the lack of universality of the ritualisations of knowledge of northern hemisphere cultures.

Presenters: Dr Andres Rodriguez and Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson (Department of History); Dr Minerva Inwald (Casual Tutor)

This panel seeks to discuss the current challenges many of us face as educators working on China related issues in higher education. It aims to understand the ways in which ongoing debates about the role of China in Australian politics may be shaping or constraining our pedagogical experiences and approaches in the classroom.

As a panel we aim to address the following questions:

• What are some of the challenges we face as educators in light of the growing Sinophobe frenzy that currently dominates the media and politics in Australia?
• How are we addressing the concerns of Chinese students in the classroom in this particular context?
• Are we consciously enabling inclusive pedagogical methodologies when dealing with students from multicultural backgrounds? 
• Is ‘cultural competence’, one of the university’s current graduate attributes, a meaningful concept to begin discussing new teaching strategies?

The panel welcomes contributions from other members of the CSC community who would also like to share their thoughts, lessons, and experience in the classroom.

Facilitator: Professor Hans Hendrischke (The University of Sydney Business School)

Effects of the US China Trade War

Presenter: A/Professor Dilip Dutta (School of Economics, The University of Sydney)

Background of the recent trade disputes between China and the United States; effects on consumers and producers in both countries; how their loss has turned out to be a boon for exporters of competing products from some other nations; how policy uncertainty has started hurting world trade in 2019 and will hurt in years to come unless trade disputes are settled soon.

Outbound Direct Investment:  CSR practices of Chinese companies in developed economies

Presenter: Dr Wei Li (The University of Sydney Business School)

Drawing on recent corporate governance and institutional literature, we propose the extended corporate governance model for subsidiaries to manage CSR as a balancing act in response to legitimacy challenges. We apply this model to Chinese MNE subsidiary CSR strategies in Australia and consider how subsidiaries configure CSR practices from their home and host markets. We propose that key home institutions like ownership shape home market and host market demand and configurations of CSR strategies based on an effective sample of 83 Australian subsidiaries of Chinese multinational firms. Our results generally support those assumptions. 

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in continental Asia

Presenter: Dr Sandra Alday (The University of Sydney Business School)

Landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) comprise around 50% of the countries on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in continental Asia, and have persistently remained at the fringes of the regional trade network. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Mongolian firms, the study identifies dimensions of the national industrial infrastructure that have hampered the international competitiveness of Mongolian businesses. Opportunities for policy development aimed at improving LLDC private sector competitiveness within the context of the BRI are explored.

Keynote speaker: Professor Duoqi Xu (Fudan University)

The world is stepping into the era of datafication, and all aspects of people's daily life can be transformed into data resources. On the premise of clarifying the connection and difference between credit bureau industry and data analysis industry, this paper will analyze the development status and existing problems of China's data analysis industry, and focus on the regulatory direction of data analysis industry for providing services to the financial industry on the basis of comparing international and domestic personal data protection legal systems. In view of the current situation of China's data analysis industry, the products and services provided, the current situation of personal data protection, relevant policy needs and the direction of industry regulation, and other issues, on the basis of careful investigation and research, this paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations for China's data analysis industry regulation.

Presenter: A/Professor Jeanne Huang (Sydney Law School)

In recent years, domestic regulators have become more serious about personal data breach. However, there are few scholarships analysing the global trends of applicable law for personal data. This paper surveys applicable-law jurisprudence in the four major jurisdictions in the world: the US, China, Australia, and the EU. It argues that there are four emerging global trends: the fragmentation of characterization, the proliferation of the lex fori approach, the harmonization of substantive law on intermediaries’ liability, and the de-Americanization of data industry regulation. Further, it explores the dynamics among these trends at the macro and micro levels. It also provides implications for the development of applicable-law rules and for the harmonization of laws. Ascertaining the global trends is important because it informs domestic legislators of the convergence and divergence of different national laws. It also helps technology companies to design their global service. It further provides useful references for international organizations who plan to propose treaties or model laws to coordinates national laws.

Presenters: A/Professor Jingdong Yuan (Department of Government and International Relations), Dr Yi Wang (Griffith University), Mr Minran Liu (PhD candidate, Department of Government and International Relations), Mohid Iftikhar (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

China’s rise in the 21^st century is one of the most significant developments in international relations in the post-Cold War era. At 70, China under President Xi Jinping has been pursuing an active diplomatic agenda in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. While many of the global issues, from climate change to economic recovery requires Beijing’s cooperation and indeed a leadership role, China remains focused on its periphery in the exercise of its power and influence. This panel examines Beijing’s interactions with its neighbours and the opportunities and challenges they present, including the recent developments in Australia-China relations, Canberra’s response to China’s Belt & Road Initiative, the efforts by China, Japan and South Korea in promoting regional economic integration, and the complex relationship between China and India, Asia’s two rising powers. 

Keynote speaker: Professor Jae Ho Chung (Department of Political Science & International Relations, Seoul National University)

Pundits around the world scratch their heads wondering if and when China will become capable of competing against the United States.

Will China's challenge to the United States be sustainable in the medium- to long run? The answer to this vital question rests on five hurdles situated on Beijing's uncertain path to a "responsible great power." These hurdles pertain to the issue of securing, respectively, sustainable economic growth, stable and peaceful relations with the U.S., sufficient resources for public goods for the international community, soft power, and allies loyal to China. The talk will offer assessments for each of these five dimensions, along with implications for the fast-changing world ahead of us.