In this lecture, Professor Jiang will discuss the concept of "politics" in ancient Confucianism as illuminated in the Four Books. He will point out the features of Confucian concept of politics by making a comparison between Confucian tradition and western political thought. He will also analyzes the strength and weakness of the Confucian concept of politics, and explore the possibilities of situating Confucianism in modern liberal democracy.

Yi-Huah Jiang received his BA and MA degrees from National Taiwan University and his PhD in political science from Yale University. He previously taught political philosophy at the department of political science at National Taiwan University. Jiang’s academic interests lie in political philosophy, democratic theory, general education, and Taiwanese politics. He is the author of Liberalism, Nationalism and National Identity (1998) and Essays on Liberalism and Democracy (2000). He was the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from National Taiwan University and a Distinguished Research Award from the National Science Council of Taiwan in 2002.

Jiang was the founding editor of Societas: A Journal for Philosophical Study of Public Affairs. He was also the associate dean of academic affairs and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Development at National Taiwan University during 2006 and 2007. From 2008 to 2014, he served various important government positions in Taiwan. He is now a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Berggruen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Many mainstream IR (international relations) theorists are trying to take on the implications of China’s rise for international system and existing international regimes. Most of them try to address this question within the existing theoretical framework with a high degree of unduly confidence. Only a few followers of social constructivism are willing to entertain the possibility that China’s rise might unravel the highly Americanized IR field. Among mainstream IR scholars, the way the question is framed remains very much U.S.-centric or West-centric.

Drawing on the current IR theories and his observations, Professor Chu will discuss the following questions. Will China’s rise lead to wars? Will China’s rise lead to a breakdown of norms and institutions? He will also elaborate on the emerging world order in the 21 century from the perspective of China and the rise of the rest.

Professor Yun-Han CHU is Distinguished Research Fellow of Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. He serves concurrently as president of Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. He specializes in politics of Greater China, East Asian political economy and democratization.

Professor Chu received his PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty of National Taiwan University in 1987. He was a visiting associate professor at Columbia University in 1990-1991. He was appointed a vice president of the CCK Foundation in 1999. He became the president of the organization in June 2001. Before joining the foundation, he had served as Director of Programs of the Institute for National Policy Research from 1989 to 1999.

He is also the founder and Director of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), a regional network of survey on democracy, governance and development covering more than seventeen Asian countries. Professor Chu was a former president of Chinese Association of Political Science (Taipei) in 2002-2004, a member of the International Council of the Asia Society between 2001 and 2007, and a member of the Council of American Political Science Association (2009-2011). He was elected an Academician of Academia Sinica, the country’s highest academic honor, in July 2012. He received the University of Minnesota's Outstanding Achievement Award, which is the highest honor bestowed upon its graduates, in October 2014. He currently serves on the editorial board of Journal of Democracy, China Review, Journal of Contemporary China, International Studies Perspectives, etc. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of fifteen books. Among his recent English publications are How East Asians View Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2008), Citizens, Elections and Parties in East Asia (Lynne Reinner, 2008), Dynamics of Local Governance in China During the Reform Era (Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc, 2010) and Democracy in East Asia: A New Century (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013).

These lectures are conducted by Professor YU Keping, the former Deputy President of Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, now is Chair Professor, the finding Director of PKU Research Center for Chinese Politics and the Dean of School of Government at Peking University. His major fields include political philosophy, comparative politics, globalization, civil society, governance and politics in China. Among his many books are Essays on Modernizing State Governance (Beijing, 2015), Globalization and Changes in China’s Governance (Brill, 2013), Governance and Rule of Law in China (ed., Brill, 2012) and Democracy Is A Good Thing (Brookings, 2010). As a leading intellectual and advocate of democratic governance in China, Professor Yu has a number of honorary titles of professors and doctors at many universities and was selected to be as “30 most influential figures in the past 30 years since the Reform in China” in 2008 and ranked “2011 Global Top 100 Thinkers” by Foreign Policy in the US. Recently, Professor Yu was selected to be the “Most Influential Scholar of 2015” by China Newsweek.

Theories of democratic transition suggest that the survival of one-party rule in China will face increasing challenges in the coming decade. But a large number of observers also insist that China is exceptional. What is the prospect of a regime transition in China despite its poor odds at the moment? We will rely on insights from recent cases of transitions and empirical data from China to conduct a systematic analysis on the likelihood and possible scenarios of a democratic transition in China in the coming 10-15 years.

Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank based in Washington. He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1999 and 2009, and taught at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998. He is the author of China's Crony Capitalism: Dynamics of Regime Decay (Harvard, 2016), China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard, 2006), and From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard, 1994). He received his PhD in political science from Harvard University in 1991.

How do Chinese township and county congresses represent their constituents when congress meetings are brief and infrequent and policymaking is dominated by the congress standing committee, higher levels of authority, and communist party committees? Based on scores of qualitative interviews and an original survey of 5,130 local congress delegates, Melanie Manion shows that the amateur local congresses deliver representation in the form of targeted public goods to the geographic constituency. Moreover, congress delegates and ordinary Chinese share an understanding of this notion of representation. Unlike liberal democratic versions, however, this Chinese “pork barrel politics” mainly works extra-legislatively, through delegate advocacy to local governments.

Melanie Manion is a professor of political science at Duke University. She studied philosophy and political economy at Peking University in the late 1970s, was trained in Far Eastern studies at McGill University and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and earned her doctorate in political science at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on contemporary authoritarianism, with work on bureaucracy, corruption, information, and representation in China. She is the recipient of numerous research awards, including awards from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and American Council of Learned Societies. Her current research project, a collaboration with Charles Chang, examines regime management of various forms of social media in China. Her newest book, Information for Autocrats (Cambridge University Press, 2015), analyzes representation in Chinese local congresses. Other publications include Retirement of Revolutionaries in China (Princeton University Press, 1993), Corruption by Design (Harvard University Press, 2004), and Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies (edited with Allen Carlson, Mary Gallagher, and Kenneth Lieberthal, Cambridge University Press, 2010). Her articles have appeared in journals including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, and China Quarterly. She is an award-winning teacher.

China’s advent to the WTO promised an opening up of the educational system to international cooperation, especially for tertiary education. There certainly has been a growth and regularisation of Chinese-international activities in higher education with the emergence of Joint-Venture (Chinese-Foreign Cooperation) universities, and the greater development of both faculty-level operations and individual degree programs. On the other hand, at first sight the extent of state regulation seems to suggest that there has been little of the promised opening up. This conclusion though has to be counter-balanced by the emergence of a substantial grey and somewhat unregulated sector of cooperation between Chinese universities and their international partners, especially in the United Kingdom. Formal joint ventures are highly regulated, though constantly changing; the informal market for higher education, while considerably more costly to the consumer, has grown exponentially.

David S G Goodman is Professor and Head of the Department of China Studies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China’s largest joint venture university. Educated at the University of Manchester, the London School of Oriental and African Studies, and Peking University, he has conducted research on social and political change at the local level in China. In a previous life he was the Deputy Vice Chancellor International at the University of Technology, Sydney. His most recent publications are Class in Contemporary China (Polity, 2014) and the Handbook of the Politics of China (Elgar, 2015). Prof Goodman is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, and a PRC Ministry of Education Distinguished Overseas Academic.

Pollution, Institutions and Street Protest in Urban China

Street protests have become commonplaces in China. Utilizing extensive survey data, this study attempts to shed light on the nature of environmental street protests in China. The key question to be answered in the paper is: why, facing the same issue, some people choose the option of participating in street protest while others do not? Our multivariate analytical findings indicate that urban residents’ willingness in participating in street protest over a hypothetical pollution issue in China is significantly related to their attitudes toward institution in China. What motivate people to participate in street protest have a lot to do with their trust and support of the political system in China and their perceived government transparency. In other words, these protests are not just what Lewis Coser calls “realistic conflicts” which primarily involve specific issues and solutions. One implication from our study is that street protests in China may not be as benign and non-regime threatening as some scholars think.

Prof Yang Zhong is a Distinguished Changjiang Chair Professor, Dean of School of International and Public Affairs, and Director of Public Opinion Research Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His main research and teaching interests include Chinese political culture and participation and Chinese local government. He has published over 50 scholarly articles and book chapters and authored and co-edited several books. His latest book is Political Culture and Participation in Rural China (Routledge, 2012).

Internet +: The Private Roles in Forging MLG for Innovation Economy

Multi-Level Governance (MLG) refers to intergovernmental and intersectoral collaboration in response to complex issues. Much is to be learned about the roles of private actors to facilitate the communication and collaboration of multilevel governments which may be fragmented and slow in building intergovernmental policy consensus and implementation framework. This paper argues that private actors may strategically manipulate their political, technical, professional, economic and other capital to create political legitimacy and technical feasibility for consistent intergovernmental actions. We will use the "internet +" policy process in China as a case.

Yijia Jing is a professor in Public Administration at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He is editor-in-chief of Fudan Public Administration Review, associate editor of Public Administration Review, and co-editor of International Public Management Journal. He is the founding co-editor of Palgrave book series, Governing China in the 21 Century. He serves as a vice president of International Research Society for Public Management.

適逢湯顯祖逝世四百周年。 講座圍繞其主要作品臨川四夢展開，重點介紹剖析其中三夢的女性角色及其所代表的愛情觀： 《紫釵記》霍小玉之現世愛情，《牡丹亭》杜麗娘之出生入死，《南柯記》瑤芳公主之幻境仙遊。三部著作，三位女性，三種命運，皆以一夢貫之，從各個方位構建了湯顯祖的理想人生和世界。

沈昳麗，中國昆曲表演藝術家，國家一級演員，MFA藝術碩士，上海昆劇團當家閨門旦。曾主演《牡丹亭》《玉簪記》《長生殿》等多部大戲，以及《尋夢》《說親》《題曲》等多出傳統折子戲。曾榮獲聯合國教科文組織和文化部聯合頒發的“促進昆劇藝術獎”、首屆中國昆劇藝術節優秀表演獎、上海白玉蘭戲劇表演藝術主角獎等多項榮譽。2009年與英國BBC交響樂團合作演出原創交響樂作品《牡丹園之夢》。長期以來堅持進入各大院校、圖書館、人文講壇開展各類文化昆曲系列講座。