SPEAKER: PROFESSOR YU XIE BERT G. KERSTETTER ’66 UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY DIRECTOR OF CENTER ON CONTEMPORARY CHINA PRINCETON UNIVERSITY (MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES) DISCUSSANTS: PROFESSOR MICHAEL ZHENG SONG WEI LUN PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS CO-DIRECTOR OF CUHK-TSINGHUA JOINT RESEARCH CENTER FOR CHINESE ECONOMY THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG PROFESSOR GUOQI XU DAVID H. Y. CHANG PROFESSOR OF CHINESE HISTORY DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY OF CHINA THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG MODERATOR: PROFESSOR ZHIWU CHEN CHAIR AND CHENG YU-TUNG PROFESSOR IN FINANCE DIRECTOR OF HONG KONG INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DIRECTOR OF CENTRE FOR QUANTITATIVE HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

January 20, 2026 at 8:30 AM UTC

Contrary to perceptions of Chinese culture as static or monolithic, Professor Yu Xie of Princeton University argues that it is profoundly dynamic, multilayered, and continuously evolving. In his latest work, Professor Xie proposes that contemporary Chinese culture emerges from the synthesis of three foundational sources, each with distinct historical and ideological origins. To distinguish these sources, he assigns them symbolic colors: Yellow, Red, and Blue. TheYellowsource draws from China’s deep historical legacy—its imperial traditions, Confucian values, and millennia-old civilizational continuity. TheBluesource represents Western influences that entered China—initially via Japan—beginning in the late 19th century, bringing modernization, scientific rationalism, and liberal democratic ideals. TheRedsource stems from Soviet influence and the revolutionary doctrines of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which have fundamentally reshaped governance, ideology, and social organization since 1949. During this lecture, Professor Xie will explore how the dynamic interplay of these Yellow, Red, and Blue elements—sometimes conflicting, sometimes synthesizing—has created a uniquely hybrid cultural system that distinguishes contemporary China from any other society and explains both its remarkable adaptability and its internal contradictions. Join us for an engaging IHSS Public Lecture byProfessor Yu Xieas he explores the dynamic evolution of Chinese culture and society. The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion featuring economist Professor Michael Zheng Song and historian Professor Guoqi  Xu, moderated by Professor Zhiwu Chen, Director of the organizing institution. The panel will offer diverse insights into the lecture’s key themes.

SPEAKER: SHOUYUE ZHANG IS A PHD CANDIDATE IN HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE. HIS DISSERTATION EXAMINES THE CHINESE EXCLUSION LAWS AND THE RESILIENCE OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXAS. HIS 2025 FIELDWORK IN TEXAS WAS SUPPORTED BY THE ALMA HANSEN SCHOLARSHIP AND THE ARTS PHD FIELDWORK GRANT. HIS ARTICLE AND BOOK REVIEW ARE PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK ARCHIVES AND JOURNAL OF AMERICAN ETHNIC HISTORY. DISCUSSANT: JIAN GAO IS A HISTORIAN OF CHINESE MIGRATION TO THE AMERICAS, SPECIALIZING IN TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS, IDENTITY, AND EMOTIONAL HISTORY. HIS AWARD-WINNING SCHOLARSHIP HAS APPEARED IN LEADING JOURNALS AND EARNED HONORS FROM LASA, WHA, AND OTHER MAJOR ASSOCIATIONS. HIS FORTHCOMING MONOGRAPH, JOURNEYS OF LONGING AND BELONGING, IS UNDER CONTRACT WITH UNC PRESS. HIS SECOND BOOK EXAMINES POST-1965 U.S. IMMIGRATION CONTROL. FLUENT IN FOUR LANGUAGES, HE IS A PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR AT ASU AND A RECIPIENT OF MAJOR NATIONAL FELLOWSHIPS. MODERATOR: SHANA BROWN IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND DIRECTOR OF THE HONORS PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA. SHE SPECIALIZES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND VISUAL CULTURE, FOCUSING ON MODERN CHINA IN GLOBAL AND LOCAL CONTEXT. HER RECENT PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE ARTICLES ON A 19TH-CENTURY FEMALE CHINESE PAINTER AND WOMEN IN CHINESE ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE 20TH CENTURY. HER BOOK PASTIMES WAS PUBLISHED IN CHINESE TRANSLATION IN 2024 BY ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY PRESS.

January 21, 2026 at 10:00 PM UTC

Shouyue Zhang’s research examines a little-known chapter of U.S. immigration history by shifting attention from the Pacific Coast to the U.S.–Mexico border. Beginning with the startling 1901 arrest of Wong Kim Ark—despite his Supreme Court–affirmed U.S. citizenship—this talk explores how Chinese exclusion laws were enforced in Texas and along the southern border from the 1890s through the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on more than one hundred immigration interviews, the presentation uncovers the lived experiences of Chinese migrants and families navigating interrogation, deportation, and hybrid national identities. By tracing how exclusion practices evolved into enduring border control mechanisms, the talk reveals how this region shaped modern U.S. immigration policy. It also highlights the social mobility of later-generation Chinese Texans and their transnational influence. Connecting past and present, this research offers timely insights into contemporary debates on citizenship, borders, and migration.

DAVID Y. YANG (HARVARD UNIVERSITY)

January 22, 2026 at 1:15 PM UTC

Online via Webex. Please register here:fu-berlin.webex.com/webappng/sites/fu-berlin/webinar/webinarSeries/register/4a9b46cc059949ec85b7360d963cca0a Venture capital plays an important role in funding and shaping innovation outcomes, characterized by investors’ deep knowledge of the technology, industry, and institutions, as well as their long-running relationships with the entrepreneurship and innovation community. China, in its pursuit of global leadership in AI innovation and technology, has set up government venture capital funds so that both national and local governments act as venture capitalists. These government-led venture capital funds combine features of private venture capital with traditional government innovation policies. In this paper, we collect comprehensive data on China’s government and private venture capital funds. We draw three important contrasts between government and private VC funds: (i) government funds are spatially more dispersed than private funds; (ii) government funds invest in firms with weaker ex-ante performance signals but these firms exhibit growth rates exceeding those of firms in which private funds invest; and (iii) private VC funds follow government VC investments, especially when hometown government funds directly invest on firms with weaker ex-ante performance signals. We interpret these patterns in light of VC funds’ traditional role overcoming information frictions and China’s unique institutional environment, which includes important frictions on mobility and information. Bio: David Y. Yangis a Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and Director of the Center for History and Economics at Harvard. David is a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER, a Global Scholar at CIFAR, and a fellow at BREAD. David’s research focuses on political economy. In particular, David studies the forces of stability and forces of changes in authoritarian regimes, drawing lessons from historical and contemporary China. David received a B.A. in Statistics and B.S. in Business Administration from University of California at Berkeley, and PhD in Economics from Stanford.

NICHOLAS DE VILLIERS

January 22, 2026 at 11:30 PM UTC

In Cruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang(University of Minnesota Press, 2022), Nicholas de Villiers contends that we need to theorize both queer time and space to understand Taiwan-based director Tsai Ming-liang's cinematic explorations of feeling melancholy, cruisy, and sleepy.Building on those arguments, this presentation starts with a reading of Tsai’s short filmIt’s a Dream(2007)—set in a movie theater in Malaysia—as a microcosm of Tsai’s themes and motifs of sleep/dreaming, cruising, nostalgia, and the space of the cinema. It then addressesTsai’s “post-retirement” (after 2013) filmsand museum installations, including the queer Teddy award-winning digital feature filmDays(Rizi, 2020) shot in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand, and the short filmThe Night(2021) shot in Hong Kong in 2019. Both were featured in the solo exhibitionTsai Ming-liang’s Daysat the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE) in 2023, experimenting with "expanded cinema" and collaborative curation of Tsai's still expanding body of work. Nicholas de Villiersis Professor of English and film at the University of North Florida and 2023–2024 Fulbright U.S. Senior Scholar in Taiwan at National Central University at the Center for the Study of Sexualities. He is the author ofOpacity and the Closet: Queer Tactics in Foucault, Barthes, and Warhol(2012),Sexography: Sex Work in Documentary(2017), andCruisy, Sleepy, Melancholy: Sexual Disorientation in the Films of Tsai Ming-liang(2022), all from the University of Minnesota Press.

主讲人 ：代志新 法国里昂大学经济学博士。中国人民大学财政金融学院教授、博士生导师，行为实验财税研究中心主任。入选国家高层次人才项目青年人才计划，专注于行为财政研究，在国内外权威期刊发表论文50余篇。 评议人：王微 中国人民大学经济学博士。国务院发展研究中心市场经济研究所原所长、二级研究员，享受国务院特殊津贴专家。研究领域为城市化与城市经济、流通与物流、消费政策、信用体系建设等。 主持人：刘培林 北京大学经济学博士。清华大学中国经济思想与实践研究院研究员。曾任国务院发展研究中心发展战略和区域经济研究部副部长，研究员；浙江大学区域协调发展研究中心首席专家、研究员，浙江大学共享与发展研究院副院长。

January 24, 2026 at 1:30 AM UTC

市场如何统直是包括发达国家在内的一个热点问题。本讲座围绕“市场何以未能统一、为何必须加快统一、未来如何高质量统一”三条主线展开。讲座首先从改革开放以来我国市场化进程与制度变迁的历史脉络出发，系统剖析市场分割与地方保护的深层生成机制，重点讨论行政分权与监管碎片化、财税体制与政绩考核所引致的激励扭曲、要素市场壁垒与规则不一致导致的制度性交易成本等关键因素，进而阐释其对资源配置效率、企业跨区域经营与公平竞争秩序的影响。其后，讲座将梳理全国统一大市场建设的政策框架、制度供给与阶段性进展，并结合当前宏观经济环境与高质量发展要求，分析统一大市场在畅通国内大循环、促进要素自由流动提升全要素生产率、增强产业链供应链韧性以及塑造国际竞争新优势方面的基础性作用。最后，讲座将面向未来改革议程，围绕“统计监测财税激励一考核约束”的制度协同逻辑，提出构建可度量可核验、可问责的统一大市场治理工具体系与试点路径的思路与建议，为完善高水平社会主义市场经济体制提供可操作的政策启示。

PROFESSOR SIJIE HU (THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG) SIJIE HU IS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE HONG KONG INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND THE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG. SHE RECEIVED HER PH.D. (2021) IN ECONOMIC HISTORY FROM THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. PRIOR TO JOINING HKU, SHE WAS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC HISTORY AT THE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, RENMIN UNIVERSITY OF CHINA. HER RESEARCH LIES AT THE INTERSECTION OF ECONOMIC HISTORY AND DEMOGRAPHY. SHE IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON PROJECTS THAT AIM TO UNDERSTAND MICRO-DEMOGRAPHIC DYNAMICS IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE SOCIETY USING GENEALOGIES.

January 27, 2026 at 4:30 AM UTC

This paper examines the transition from limited to open-access societies, focusing on early and high-Tang China (618–906). Using a dataset of 1,200 marriages from 618 to 755, we find that Empress Wu’s rise to power in 674—the first and only female emperor in Chinese history—positively impacted upward mobility. After 674, men from common and poor clans were more likely to marry into elite clans. This increase in inter-class marriages was primarily driven by Empress Wu’s expansion of national civil examinations, which strengthened her legitimacy and created new opportunities for social advancement.

CHRIS HORTONIS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST AND AUTHORWHO HAS BEEN BASED IN TAIPEI, TAIWAN FOR THE PAST DECADE. HE PREVIOUSLY SPENT 13 YEARS IN CHINA AND TWO IN HONG KONG. HE HAS WRITTEN EXTENSIVELY FORTHE NEW YORK TIMES, BLOOMBERG NEWS,NIKKEI ASIA,THE ATLANTICAND ELSEWHERE, COVERING TAIWAN'S NATIONAL SECURITY, DIPLOMACY, ECONOMY, CULTURE AND MORE. HIS NEW BOOK,GHOST NATION: THE STORY OF TAIWAN AND ITSSTRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL(MACMILLAN) EXAMINES HOW FOUR CENTURIES OF SERIAL COLONIZATION SHAPED THE PEOPLE WHO FOUGHT FOR WHAT IS NOW ASIA'S FREEST - AND MOST THREATENED - DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY.

February 12, 2026 at 11:30 PM UTC

InGhost Nation: the Story of Taiwan and its Struggle for Survival, Chris Horton compares Beijing's claim that Taiwan has been Chinese territory "since time immemorial" with Taiwan's actual history. Several different groups have controlled some or all of Taiwan over the last 400 years -- the Dutch, Spanish, Tungning, Manchu, Japanese, Chinese, and now, Taiwanese. By looking at those who have ruled Taiwan, Horton also tells the story of the Taiwanese people, highlighting their intergenerational quest for self-determination -- and the existential threat posed by an expansionist Chinese Communist Party.