Dr. Timothy Brook (University of British Columbia), Dr. Timothy Cheek (University of British Columbia), Dr. Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics)

On Wednesday November 17, 2021, from 10AM to 12:00PM (PST), join the online symposium event hosted by UBC’s Centre for Chinese Research. Our first guest for this symposium will be Dr. Timothy Brook, the author of Great State: China and the World (2020). Please see below a title and an abstract of the lecture that Dr. Brook will be giving on November 17: What was Lost: From Ming Statecraft to Republican Reform to Party Dictatorship
Abstract: What determines the lawfulness of a state when that state is Chinese? The answer has to take account of the legal foundations of state governance before the 20th century as well as the 20th-century efforts to craft a Chinese version of republicanism before that experiment was taken hostage by the party dictatorship of first the Nationalists and then the Communists. Once that history is understood, we see how much has been lost, and when we do, the excuses we fall back on to overlook the unlawful actions of the contemporary state must fall away.