HO-FUNG HUNG

March 19, 2025 at 5:00 AM UTC

Since Nixon ended the USD's gold convertibility in 1971, predictions of the imminent fall of USD hegemony in the global economy have persisted. These predictions peaked in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and again when U.S. sanctions on Russia intensified Russia and China's calls for de-dollarization. Despite this long-standing expectation, the majority of international trade transactions and foreign exchange reserves continue to be denominated in USD, and the anticipated challenge to the dollar hegemony by other currencies like the euro never materialized. I argue that the staying power of the USD, despite the U.S.'s declining economic standing, stems from the U.S. security umbrella on which most leading capitalist economies and commodity exporters rely. China is the only major capitalist power with both the geopolitical capabilities and ambitions to rival the U.S. This makes China’s RMB the first viable alternative to the USD, with the potential to challenge dollar hegemony and help usher in a multipolar monetary order. However, this potential has been constrained by China’s party-state capitalist regime, which prioritizes financial control through its state-owned banks, preventing the full convertibility of the RMB. While Cold War and post-Cold War geopolitics have sustained USD hegemony from the 1970s to the 2000s, China’s domestic politics have delayed the RMB's internationalization, thereby prolonging USD dominance into the foreseeable future. About the Speaker Ho-fungHungis the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy in the Department of Sociology and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the JohnsHopkins University. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the journalAsian Perspective. He is the author of several award-winning and critically acclaimed books, includingProtest with Chinese Characteristics(Columbia 2011),The China Boom: Why China Will not Rule the World(Columbia 2015),City on the Edge:Hong Kong under Chinese Rule(Cambridge 2022), andClash of Empires: From “Chimerica” to the “New Cold War”(Cambridge 2022). His academic publications have been translated into at least 12 different languages. His analyses of the Chinese and global political economy have been cited or featured in major outlets around the world, such asThe New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal,Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs,CNN,Financial Times, CBC, BBC,The Guardian,The Telegraph, Die Presse,DW,The Little Red Podcast,Strait Times, Chosun Ilbo,Nikkei, Caixin, South China Morning Post, and Folha de S. Paulo.

BRUCE ARONSON IS SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE JAPAN CENTER OF THE U.S.-ASIA LAW INSTITUTE AND AN ADJUNCT PROFESSOR AT NYU SCHOOL OF LAW. HE HAS BEEN A TENURED PROFESSOR OF LAW AT UNIVERSITIES IN THE UNITED STATES (CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY) AND JAPAN (HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITY IN TOKYO). BEFORE BEGINNING HIS ACADEMIC CAREER, HE WAS A CORPORATE PARTNER AT THE LAW FIRM OF HUGHES HUBBARD & REED LLP IN NEW YORK. HE ALSO SERVED AS AN INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR AT EISAI CO., LTD., A LISTED JAPANESE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY. PROFESSOR ARONSON TWICE RECEIVED FULBRIGHT GRANTS TO BE A SENIOR RESEARCH SCHOLAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO AND AT WASEDA UNIVERSITY, AND WAS A VISITING SCHOLAR AT THE BANK OF JAPAN. HIS MAIN AREA OF RESEARCH IS COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE WITH A FOCUS ON JAPAN AND ASIA. PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE A TEXTBOOK, CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN ASIA: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH (WITH J. KIM, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2019). HIS RECENT PUBLICATION DESIGNING A NEW FRAMEWORK TO REGULATE HOSTILE TAKEOVERS IN A CHANGING JAPAN IS AVAILABLE HERE. ANDREW MCDERMOTT IS THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF MISSION VALUE PARTNERS, WHICH MANAGES A GLOBAL EQUITY PORTFOLIO THAT IS CURRENTLY 100% INVESTED IN JAPAN. HIS JOURNEY IN FINANCE BEGAN AFTER HE GRADUATED FROM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY WITH A DEGREE IN HISTORY AND WORKED AT NEC LOGISTICS IN TOKYO. IN 1994 HE JOINED JPMORGAN, WHERE HE ENGAGED WITH A WIDE ARRAY OF FINANCIAL SERVICES FROM INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE IN CHINA TO TECH IPOS IN HONG KONG, SINGAPORE, AND SAN FRANCISCO. HE FOUNDED MISSION VALUE PARTNERS IN 2010.

March 21, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

Japan's regulatory system for hostile takeovers remains incomplete, complicated, and uncertain. As the government seeks to reignite economic growth and attract foreign investment, there is new urgency to promote best market practices and reform the system for adjudicating hostile takeover bids. Bruce Aronson, an adjunct law professor at NYU School of Law who has been a practicing lawyer, law professor, and listed company board member in Japan, will share his recommendations from a recent co-authored paper. Andrew McDermott, a long-time investor in Japan with first-hand experience in hostile takeovers in Japan and other markets, will be a discussant.

主讲人：吴思。历史学者，资深编辑。毕业于中国人民大学中文系。2018年哈佛大学费正清中国研究中心访问学者。曾任《炎黄春秋》杂志总编辑，天则经济研究所理事长。著有《陈永贵：毛泽东的农民》《潜规则》《血酬定律》《顶残：中国市场和产权的构造及逻辑》《我想重新解释历史》等书。 评议人：洪朝辉。美国纽约福坦莫大学（FORDHAM UNIVERSITY）经济史终身教授。主要研究领域侧重经济史和经济思想史，代表性专著有: THE PRICE OF CHINA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; INTRODUCTION TO PROPRIETY ECONOMICS; EXPLORING CHINA'S RELIGIOUS SITES: DIGITAL AND SPATIAL INSIGHTS;《适度经济学导论》等。 主持人：陶然。现任香港中文大学（深圳）人文社科学院校长讲座教授，发展与治理学科部主任，发展与治理研究院院长，研究专注于中国经济转型与发展的多个相关领域。

March 23, 2025 at 1:00 AM UTC

从古到今，中国市场和产权的构造形同玛雅金字塔，呈品级结构。面对来自上层权力的侵犯，所有市场和经济主体都缺乏抵御能力和救济手段，这种特征可谓“顶残”。追溯品级市场和产权的历史演化，可以提炼出各种制度的建构逻辑。这些逻辑最后归结为“一个公式三个定律”：品级利权建构公式和官控经济三定律。遵循这套逻辑主导品级市场和产权制度建构的官家集团，其内部利益结构，好比俄罗斯套娃，套娃之变与市场和产权结构之变互动。搜索“大学沙龙”YouTube频道收看讲座。

RUSLAN YUSUPOV: A SOCIOCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGIST INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING HOW MUSLIM COMMUNITIES FIND A PLACE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR ISLAM IN CHINESE MODERNITY. RUSLAN IS CURRENTLY COMPLETING HIS FIRST BOOK MANUSCRIPT PROJECT WHICH IS TENTATIVELY TITLE “RECTIFYING MULTICULTURALISM: ISLAM, DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITIZATION IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA” AND WHICH EXPLORES HOW THE SECURITIZING MEASURES TODAY OTHER AND RACIALIZE THE PAST DEVELOPMENT, PROGRESS AND MODERNIZATION OF SINOPHONE MUSLIMS. RUSLAN OBTAINED HIS PHD FROM THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG AND HE IS CURRENTLY BASED AT THE WEATHERHEAD CENTER AT HARVARD. YUTING WANG: PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. HER RESEARCH FOCUSES ON ISLAM AND MUSLIMS IN CHINA, THE CHINESE DIASPORA IN THE ARAB GULF, AND CHINA’S SOFT POWER IN THE MENA REGION. SHE HAS PUBLISHED EXTENSIVELY, INCLUDING TWO MONOGRAPHS: BETWEEN ISLAM AND THE AMERICAN DREAM: AN IMMIGRANT MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN POST-9/11 AMERICA (ROUTLEDGE, 2014) AND CHINESE IN DUBAI: MONEY, PRIDE, AND SOUL-SEARCHING (BRILL, 2020). SUSAN MCCARTHY: PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT PROVIDENCE COLLEGE IN RHODE ISLAND. HER RESEARCH EXAMINES THE POLITICS OF ETHNICITY AND RELIGION IN CHINA. AMONG THE QUESTIONS ANIMATING HER WORK IS HOW MINORITY ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES CREATED BY CCP POLICIES TO PURSUE CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS OBJECTIVES, OFTEN IN WAYS THAT SUPPORT REGIME GOALS. SHE IS THE AUTHOR OF COMMUNIST MULTICULTURALISM: ETHNIC REVIVAL IN SOUTHWEST CHINA (2009), ALONG WITH ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS ON THESE TOPICS.

March 26, 2025 at 10:00 PM UTC

This webinar explores the evolving landscape of Islam in China, examining how Chinese Muslims navigate state policies, economic transformations, and transnational connections. Three scholars will present their research on distinct yet interconnected aspects of this dynamic religious sphere. Yuting Wang delves into the role of Chinese Muslim cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, highlighting how digital finance and global mobility shape religious practice and community formation. Susan McCarthy examines the rise and fall of World Muslim City, a development initiative that sought to integrate Hui Muslim identity with economic diplomacy, only to face increasing state restrictions. Ruslan Yusupov addresses the Sinicization of mosques, analyzing how the removal of domes and minarets serves as a political tool to redefine the relationship between Islam and Chinese identity. Together, these presentations shed light on the intersection of religion, governance, and adaptation in contemporary China, offering critical insights into the challenges and strategies of Muslim communities in an era of tightening state control.

TEEMU RUSKOLA, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

March 27, 2025 at 9:15 PM UTC

This talk draws on a book project by the same title. It seeks to offer a structural account of the remarkable political and economic transformation of the Chinese working class since 1949. My title is a deliberate reference to E.P. Thompson’s classic Making of the English Working Class. The English working class constituted the paradigmatic proletariat in the initial stages of industrial capitalism in the West, and it constitutes an especially useful lens for examining the emergence of another proletariat of global significance on the opposite edge of the Eurasian landmass, one that is in many respects emblematic of capitalism’s latest stage. Thompson frames his analysis in terms of the Enclosure Movement, which expropriated peasants of their land and left them with no option but to sell their labor. In China, too, there is occurring a similar dispossession of peasantry that is often referred to as a New Enclosure Movement, yet the two enclosure movements differ notably in their temporal and spatial scope. Processes that took place over a period of some three centuries in England have been telescoped into just three decades in China. What is more, they are taking place in the opposite order: the initial commodification of industrial labor in the 1990s was accompanied by a seemingly inexhaustible stream of migrant laborers into cities even without the large-scale commodification of rural land. Why, then, dispossess a peasantry that has already submitted to capital voluntarily, i.e., under economic duress without the need to resort to forcible dislocation? This talk seeks to answer that question from a Marxian theoretical perspective that is historical as well as comparative, with England and the Soviet Union as the principal reference points. Speaker's Bio: Teemu Ruskola is Professor of Law and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations as well as a faculty member in the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Unmaking of the Chinese Working Class, from which this talks draws, to be published by Verso Books in 2026; Legal Orientalism: China, the United States and Modern Law (Harvard University Press 2013); co-author of Schlesinger’s Comparative Law (Foundation Press 2009); and co-editor, with David Eng Shuang Shen, of a special double issue of the journal Social Text on “China and the Human” (2012).

QIANQIU LIU 刘千秋：SHIDLER COLLEGE DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA. HE SPECIALIZES IN EMPIRICAL ASSET PRICING, FINANCIAL ECONOMETRICS, INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, MARKET MICROSTRUCTURE, AND PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING. DR. LIU HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN LEADING FINANCE JOURNALS, INCLUDING REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, MANAGEMENT SCIENCE, JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MONEY AND FINANCE, JOURNAL OF BANKING AND FINANCE, AND JOURNAL OF EMPIRICAL FINANCE, AMONG OTHERS. HE EARNED HIS PH.D. IN FINANCE FROM THE KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY. YIFAN CHEN 陈逸凡：ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AND REAL ESTATE AT THE SHIDLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA. HER PRIMARY RESEARCH INTEREST IS IN THE AREA OF REAL ESTATE FINANCE AND ECONOMICS. HER WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS, JOURNAL OF REGIONAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMIC MODELLING. SHE WAS AWARDED THE TREPP CRE FUTURE LEADER AWARD. DR. CHEN EARNED HER PH.D. IN FINANCE AND REAL ESTATE FROM THE SMEAL COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AT THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY. WEI (VICTOR) HUANG 黄巍：PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AT THE SHIDLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA. HIS RESEARCH FOCUSES ON EMPIRICAL ASSET PRICING, INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, CHINESE FINANCIAL MARKETS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE. DR. HUANG'S WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN LEADING FINANCE JOURNALS, INCLUDING REVIEW OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS, JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MONEY AND FINANCE, JOURNAL OF BANKING AND FINANCE, AND JOURNAL OF CORPORATE FINANCE, AMONG OTHERS. HE HOLDS A PH.D. IN FINANCE FROM GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

April 16, 2025 at 10:00 PM UTC

This webinar explores two key dimensions of China’s capital markets and corporate governance, offering fresh insights into the influence of cultural, behavioral, and regulatory factors on market dynamics. Dr. Liu investigates the January effect in China’s A-share market, revealing a striking anomaly that aligns with the lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar, challenging conventional financial theories and highlighting unique investor behaviors. Dr. Chen examines the impact of an accountability policy on State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), demonstrating that regulatory interventions effectively reduce corporate violations without compromising profitability or innovation. By bridging financial anomalies with policy effectiveness, this webinar provides a deeper understanding of the forces shaping China’s economic and financial landscape.

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS

June 20, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC

The “International Conference on Digital Humanities for East Asia Classics” has previously been held three times, in Seoul (Korea) and Hangzhou (China), advancing the integration of East Asian classics and digital humanities while fostering international collaboration among scholars. Organized by the Research Center for Digital Humanities at Peking University in collaboration with Capital Library of China and the East Asian Knowledge and Culture Education Research Institute of Korea, the 4th International Conference on Digital Humanities for East Asia Classics will take place fromJuly 20 to 22, 2025. This conference will provide a platform for libraries, research institutions, design and creative teams, and related industries to collaborate, focusing on developing and utilizing classical resources with AI. The conference aims to open new perspectives and expand research horizons for East Asian classical studies. The conference will feature keynote speeches, paper and poster sessions, and workshops on digital transformation of ancient texts. Scholars, practitioners, and students in related fields are encouraged to contribute and participate. Outstanding submissions will be selected for journal publication. Organizational Institutions Organizer: Research Center for Digital Humanities, Peking University Co-Organizer: Capital Library of China Collaborators: East Asian Knowledge and Culture Education Institute (Korea) Digital Humanities Research Institute, Renmin University of China Intellectual Computing Laboratory for Cultural Heritage, Wuhan University Center for Big Data in Language and Computational Humanities, Nanjing Normal University Research Center for Digital History, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Research Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage Communication, Communication University of China Editorial Board ofDigital Humanities Professional Development Alliance for Digital Humanities China Digital Humanities Organizations Alliance (Additional collaborators to be announced) Contact Email：dheac2025[AT]163[DOT]com